Inch upon inch it grew—creeping across the door, until it covered all the threshold visible.
Someone was about to appear.
He raised the revolver.
The shadow moved along.
Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was there!
The shadow had come—and gone ... but there was no substance!
"I am going mad!"
The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare him in the face!
From that recent illness in London—when his nervous system had collapsed, utterly—despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said; but?—perhaps he had been wrong—perchance the affection had been deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he was become as a man in a delirium!
Where did reality end and phantasy begin? Was it all merely subjective?