Doubtless, the unremitting strain told
upon me more than I realised, and this was doubly great now that I knew
Shorthouse was a source of weakness instead of strength, as I had
counted. Certainly, a curious sense of languor grew upon me more and
more, and I was sure that the man beside me was engaged in the same
struggle. The feverishness of his talk proved this, if nothing else. It
was dreadfully hard to keep awake.
But this time, instead of dropping into the gulf, I saw something come
up out of it! It reached our world by a door in the side of the barn
furthest from me, and it came in cautiously and silently and moved into
the mass of hay opposite. There, for a moment, I lost it, but presently
I caught it again higher up. It was clinging, like a great bat, to the
side of the barn. Something trailed behind it, I could not make out
what. . . . It crawled up the wooden wall and began to move out along one
of the rafters. A numb terror settled down all over me as I watched it.
The thing trailing behind it was apparently a rope.
The whispering began again just then, but the only words I could catch
seemed without meaning; it was almost like another language.
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