On every side he was haunted and begirt by presences.

He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop, he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as he began with a great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind.

If he were but deaf, he thought, how tranquilly he would possess his soul! And then again, and hearkening with ever fresh attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life.

His head turned continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half-rewarded as with the tail of something nameless vanishing.

The four-and-twenty steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies.
On that first storey, the doors stood ajar, three of them like three ambushes, shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon.