Chapter XVI - Page 2

all the evening, rarely speaking except in reply to some question.

"I feel sad for some cause I do not understand," said he, preparing to retire. "I shall be glad when to-morrow comes."

"We will go back in the morning," I said. "You don't feel at home here, do you?"

He did not seem to hear me, but tried the door, which I had already bolted, and then got into bed, yawning and shivering, for the room was cold. I turned down the light, and, opening the shutters, looked out upon the street, now deserted save by a solitary man who had just passed the house and whose slow footsteps were gradually growing less distinct. I crouched there, listening for some moments to that fading sound, when it began to grow louder again. The man had turned about and was coming back. As he passed under the lamp on the opposite corner I thought I recognized the slim figure of Mr. Murmurtot. Suddenly I was startled by a noise in the room adjoining ours, and sprang to my feet in a tremor. Plague take my imagination! It was somebody going to bed. I sat down again and for a long time looked out at the man walking back and forth in front of the house. I was rapidly getting into a condition of mind unfavorable to rest and, closing the shutters, I went to bed at once. For hours I lay tossing restlessly from one side to the other, and finally fell into a deep sleep. I must have slept a long time when I suddenly awoke, laboring with nightmare. I had heard no sound, I had felt no touch, but all at once my eyes were open and I knew that I was awake. The lamp was burning dimly on the table beside my bed. How my heart was beating! And my arm--how it trembled when I tried to raise up on my elbow and look about the room!

"Who's there?" I whispered. Was it Rayel standing near the bed, his body swaying backward and forward, or was I yet asleep? Everything looked dim and weird. I seemed to be in some silent ghostland between sleeping and waking. I rubbed my eyes and peered about the half-darkened room. It was Rayel, and, as I gazed at him, his eyes seemed to shine like balls of fire. I called to him, but he made no answer. What had happened since I went to sleep? Alarmed, I threw the covers aside and leaped out of bed. As I did so he stepped up close to the opposite wall, and, as his hand moved, I could hear the grating of a crayon on its surface. In tremulous haste I turned up the wick of the lamp and tiptoed toward him, holding it in my hand. He was stepping backward and excitedly pointing at the wall. He had been drawing a picture on its white surface--the form of a woman holding something in her hand. I stepped nearer, still carrying the lamp. A sharp interjection broke from my lips. The woman pictured there was my stepmother, and it was a knife that she held! A man was lying at her feet. Again Rayel stepped forward, and again I heard the crayon grating on the wall. Then he stood aside. Great