Slowly, the hours passed; without anything unusual happening.  And the moon rose, showing the gardens, apparently empty, and silent.  And so, through the night, without disturbance or sound.

Toward morning, I began to grow stiff and cold, with my long vigil; also, I was getting very uneasy, concerning the continued quietness on the part of the creatures.  I mistrusted it, and would sooner, far, have had them attack the house, openly.  Then, at least, I should have known my danger, and been able to meet it; but to wait like this, through a whole night, picturing all kinds of unknown devilment, was to jeopardize one’s sanity.  Once or twice, the thought came to me, that, perhaps, they had gone; but, in my heart, I found it impossible to believe that it was so.

IX

IN THE CELLARS

At last, what with being tired and cold, and the uneasiness that possessed me, I resolved to take a walk through the house; first calling in at the study, for a glass of brandy to warm me.  This, I did, and, while there, I examined the door, carefully; but found all as I had left it the night before.

The day was just breaking, as I left the tower; though it was still too dark in the house to be able to see without a light, and I took one of the study candles with me on my ’round.  By the time I had finished the ground floor, the daylight was creeping in, wanly, through the barred windows.  My search had shown me nothing fresh.  Everything appeared to be in order, and I was on the point of extinguishing my candle, when the thought suggested itself to me to have another glance ’round the cellars.  I had not, if I remember rightly, been into them since my hasty search on the evening of the attack.

For, perhaps, the half of a minute, I hesitated.  I would have been very willing to forego the task—­as, indeed, I am inclined to think any man well might—­for of all the great, awe-inspiring rooms in this house, the cellars are the hugest and weirdest.  Great, gloomy caverns of places, unlit by any ray of daylight.  Yet, I would not shirk the work.  I felt that to do so would smack of sheer cowardice.  Besides, as I reassured myself, the cellars were really the most unlikely places in which to come across anything dangerous; considering that they can be entered, only through a heavy oaken door, the key of which, I carry always on my person.

It is in the smallest of these places that I keep my wine; a gloomy hole close to the foot of the cellar stairs; and beyond which, I have seldom proceeded.  Indeed, save for the rummage ’round, already mentioned, I doubt whether I had ever, before, been right through the cellars.

As I unlocked the great door, at the top of the steps, I paused, nervously, a moment, at the strange, desolate smell that assailed my nostrils.  Then, throwing the barrel of my weapon forward, I descended, slowly, into the darkness of the underground regions.