"But hardly had I reached the table where the candles stood when the
sound was unmistakably repeated: 'Help! help!' And this time it was
accompanied by what I can only describe as a vivid tactile
hallucination. I was touched: the _skin_ of my arm was clutched by
fingers.
"Some compelling force sent me headlong downstairs as if the haunting
forces of the whole world were at my heels. At Smith's door I paused.
The force of his previous warning injunction to seek his aid without
delay acted suddenly and I leant my whole weight against the panels,
little dreaming that I should be called upon to give help rather than
to receive it.
"The door yielded at once, and I burst into a room that was so full of a
choking vapour, moving in slow clouds, that at first I could distinguish
nothing at all but a set of what seemed to be huge shadows passing in
and out of the mist. Then, gradually, I perceived that a red lamp on the
mantelpiece gave all the light there was, and that the room which I now
entered for the first time was almost empty of furniture.
"The carpet was rolled back and piled in a heap in the corner, and upon
the white boards of the floor I noticed a large circle drawn in black of
some material that emitted a faint glowing light and was apparently
smoking.
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