Hist! I see them already! The gibbering phantoms are gathering round you!" The man's voice stopped abruptly; his eye fixed in a glazing stare; his hand relaxed its hold; he fell back on his pillow.

I stole from the room; on the landing-place I met the nurse and the old woman-servant.
Happily the children were not there.

But I heard the wail of the female child from some room not far distant.
I whispered hurriedly to the nurse, "All is over!" passed again under the jaws of the vast anaconda, and on through the blind lane between the dead walls, on through the ghastly streets, under the ghastly moon, went back to my solitary home..