Indeed, some of their advanced guard had already met her, and she had begun to wade through a filmy vapour that gradually deepened.
At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured.

When she shone out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly on the path before me--from around which at this spot the trees receded, leaving a small space of green sward--the shadow of a large hand, with knotty joints and protuberances here and there.

Especially I remarked, even in the midst of my fear, the bulbous points of the fingers.

I looked hurriedly all around, but could see nothing from which such a shadow should fall.

Now, however, that I had a direction, however undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the very sense of danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the worst property of fear.