‘A MOI! A MOI!’
Then, or a moment later, I heard a remote door opened; footsteps as of more than one person drew near. I raised my voice and cried again,—
‘A MOI!’
‘Who is there?’ a voice asked.
‘A gentleman in distress,’ I answered piteously, moving my hands across the door. ‘For God’s sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and dying of cold.’
‘What brings you here?’ the voice asked sharply. Despite its tartness, I fancied that it was a woman’s.
‘Heaven knows!’ I answered desperately. ‘I cannot tell. They maltreated me at the inn, and threw me into the street. I crawled away, and have been wandering in the wood for hours. Then I saw a light here.’
On that some muttering took place on the other side of the door—to which I had my ear. It ended in the bars being lowered. The door swung partly open, and a light shone out, dazzling me. I tried to shade my eyes with my fingers, and, as did so, fancied I heard a murmur of pity. But when I looked in under screen of my hand, I saw only one person—the man who held the light, and his aspect was so strange, so terrifying, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled a step.
He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short, scanty jacket and well-darned hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his neck, he carried his head with a strange stiffness.
And that head—never did living man show a face so like death. His forehead was bald and yellow, his cheek-bones stood out under the strained skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin were thin and fleshless. He seemed to have only one expression—a fixed grin.