I felt that my end had come, but could make no move to escape. I wanted to get up and leap through the window, but my nerveless limbs would not function. As I looked, the fur on the creature turned to a thin covering of hair, and it began to assume a manlike form. I closed my eyes and shuddered.
When I opened them a moment later, I beheld what might have been the “missing link,” half man, half beast. The face, with its receding forehead and beetling brows, was apelike and yet manlike. Wrapped about its loins was a large tiger skin. In its right hand it brandished a huge, knotted club.
Gradually it became more manlike and less apelike. The club changed to a spear, the spear to a sword, and I beheld a Roman soldier, fully accoutered for battle, with helmet, armor, target and sandals.
The Roman soldier became a knight, and the knight a musketeer. The musketeer became a colonial soldier.
At that instant there was a crash of glass, and the branch of a tree projected through the window on the right of the fireplace. The shade flew up with a snap, and the soldier disappeared, as a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the room.
I rushed to the window, and saw that the overhanging limb of an elm had been broken off by the wind and hurled through the glass. The rain was coming in in torrents.
The housekeeper, who had heard the noise, appeared in the doorway. Seeing the rain blowing in at the window, she left and returned a moment later with a hammer, tacks and a folded sheet. I tacked the sheet to the window frame with difficulty, on account of the strong wind, and again pulled down the shade.
Mrs. Rhodes retired.
I consulted my watch. It lacked just one minute of midnight.
Only half of the night gone! Would I be strong enough to endure the other half?