The
instinct of self-defence moved him first to leap to his feet, and to
face and fight it, and then followed as quickly a foolish sense of
safety in his hiding-place; and he called upon his greatest strength,
and, by his mere brute will alone, forced his forehead down to the
bare floor and lay rigid, though his nerves jerked with unknown,
unreasoning fear. And still he heard the sound of this living thing
coming creeping toward him until the instinctive terror that shook him
overcame his will, and he threw the bed-clothes from him with a hoarse
cry, and sprang up trembling to his feet, with his back against the
wall, and with his arms thrown out in front of him wildly, and with
the willingness in them and the power in them to do murder.
The room was very dark, but the windows of the one beyond let in a
little stream of light across the floor, and in this light he saw
moving toward him on its hands and knees a little baby who smiled and
nodded at him with a pleased look of recognition and kindly welcome.
The fear upon Raegen had been so strong and the reaction was so great
that he dropped to a sitting posture on the heap of bedding and
laughed long and weakly, and still with a feeling in his heart that
this apparition was something strangely unreal and menacing.
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