"Good for you, Humpty Dumpty," said Jim, under his breath, "you won't have to hire anybody to blow your trumpet for you. Sorry I can't stay, old chap, to hear the rest of your interesting and eloquent speech."
CHAPTER XXI
THE APPARITION
Jim now had one purpose in mind when he gracefully withdrew, and closed the door behind him and stood in the upper hall once more and that was to find where in the castle the Señorita da Cordova was. James waited for a minute in the broad hall, not only to get accustomed to the darkness, but to make sure that there was no one coming, or waiting for him.
Our friend had not been taught by harsh experience to no purpose. Nor had he fought the crafty Indian, and failed to learn something of their strategy. So he closed the door as tenderly as a mother, who fears to waken her sleeping babe, and then stood as still as stone waiting, watching, listening. Well it was that he did so. What was that gray bundle across the hall and lying in front of the door opening into the library?
At first glance Jim thought that it might be the hound, but it was not that. It looked more like a shapeless bundle of old clothes. Then under the directness of his gaze the thing stirred, a head was slowly lifted, and like the gradual resurrection from the cerements of death a figure half rose, and a gaze from the gray hood that seemed to burn was fixed upon him.
Next the figure half raised, moved straight and steadily in his direction, noiselessly, but with terrible intentness, direct towards him. Jim did not move. What was the use? It was his purpose to avoid all disturbance or fracas, which would surely wreck his plan now for the rescue of the señorita. He would see what this creature meant and he merely moved his hands lightly, one to grasp, the other to defend a possible thrust at his heart or throat.
To say that he was cool and unmoved would not be true; his heart thumped and he could feel the blood beat in his ears, but he was not trembling or unmanned, though curious chills crept all over his body. This person had advanced now half the way toward him, moving with the same half bent posture, and the left hand gripping the gray cloth at the throat, forming a hood. Then the woman, within three feet of him, raised her face, and looked at him with the wildest eyes ever set in a human visage. They were shot with horror, terror and an insane desperation. By the half light from the end of the hall Jim could not tell whether she were young or old.