Of course, I do not expect to be believed by half my readers,—­nor can I blame them for their incredulity.  So astounding is the circumstance, even yet, to myself, that I should doubt its reality, were it not therefore necessary, for the same reason, to doubt every event of my life.

At length the sound moved away in the direction whence it came, becoming gradually fainter and fainter until it died in the distance.  But immediately afterwards, from the same quarter, came a thin, sharp blast of wind,—­or what seemed to be such.  If one could imagine a swift, intense stream of air, no thicker than a telegraph-wire, producing a keen, whistling rush in its passage, he would understand the impression made upon my mind.  This wind, or sound, or whatever it was, seemed to strike an invisible target in the centre of the room, and thereupon ensued a new and worse confusion.  Sounds as of huge planks lifted at one end and then allowed to fall, slamming upon the floor, hard, wooden claps, crashes, and noises of splitting and snapping, filled the shanty.  The rough boards of the floor jarred and trembled, and the table and chairs were jolted off their feet.  Instinctively, I jerked away my legs, whenever the invisible planks fell too near them.

It never came into my mind to charge the family with being the authors of these phenomena:  their care and distress were too evident.  There was certainly no other human being but myself in or near the shanty.  My senses of sight and touch availed me nothing, and I confined my attention, at last, to simply noting the manifestations, without attempting to explain them.  I began to experience a feeling, not of terror, but of disturbing uncertainty.  The solid ground was taken from beneath my feet.

Still the man and his wife groaned and muttered, as if in a nightmare sleep, and the boy tossed restlessly on his low bed.  I would not disturb them, since, by their own confession, they were accustomed to the visitation.  Besides, it would not assist me, and, so long as there was no danger of personal injury, I preferred to watch alone.  I recalled, however, the woman’s remarks, remembering the mysterious blame she had thrown upon her husband, and felt certain that she had adopted some explanation of the noises, at his expense.

As the confusion continued, with more or less violence, sometimes pausing for a few minutes, to begin again with renewed force, I felt an increasing impression of somebody else being present.  Outside the shanty this feeling ceased, but every time I opened the door I fully expected to see some one standing in the centre of the room.  Yet, looking through the little windows, when the noises were at their loudest, I could discover nothing.  Two hours had passed away since I first heard the drum-beat, and I found myself at last completely wearied with my fruitless exertions and the unusual excitement.  By this time the disturbances had become faint, with more frequent pauses.