Last I found a torn end of paper. The side uppermost was blank, but to my joy the other proved to contain printed words. The piece was obviously detached from the title-page of some old book, octavo size, with which I am not acquainted, though “CATTI” looks obscurely familiar. I shall hardly have any trouble in identifying it.[¹]
I felt actual elation, for Salt would never have overlooked this, or left it here, supposing he had found it in the course of his inspection.
Five minutes had revealed these things; an hour could not reveal more. I tucked the slip of paper into my breast pocket and departed from the turret. Half-way across the bridge I was again aware of the sound of footsteps climbing to the first chamber, but dismissed the idea as a renewal of the delusion which had troubled me before.
But there was no mistake this time, as I realized very soon. The pad-pad of the unknown feet was growing louder, coming nearer. At once I was terrified, yet possessed of reason. I knew it might be fatal to let this creature see me before I saw him—it—her. Particularly disastrous it would be to be caught in this low passageway where I must go with my head almost touching my knees. I snapped off my light, staggered into the room beyond, and stood at the edge of the stair-head, leaning perforce on account of the funnel-roof. It was a position of vantage. There I was in darkness, whereas whatever was coming must emerge into the moonlight that shot through the opposite slit. I might even escape undetected down the stairs if the creature hurried past me to the bridge and the farther tower.
But this hope was abortive. The creature knew I was there: that belief stuck like a knife in my heart.
The steady steps were only ten feet below, one twist of the stair. They were like the steps of any ordinary man.
The moon must have been nearly swallowed by the hills all this time, for now it went down with appalling suddenness and left the room in thick and absolute night. I could not see my foe in darkness; could it see me?
Every nerve in me was ringing its own alarm. The subtle glue that holds the body-cells in friendly ties dissolved; it was every cell for itself. I was fleeing in all directions.
The creature actually passed me by; I felt the touch of some part of it, cold as an Arctic stone, on my arm.