“Turn the light out, Pearce,” directed Smith; “the switch is at your elbow.  We can see our way to the door well enough, now.”

In order to carry out these instructions, it became necessary for me to remain a few paces in the rear of my companion, and I think I have never experienced such a pang of nameless terror as pierced me at the moment of extinguishing the light; for Smith had not yet opened the door, and the utter darkness of the Gables was horrible beyond expression.  Surely darkness is the most potent weapon of the Unknown.  I know that at the moment my hand left the switch, I made for the door as though the hosts of hell pursued me.  I collided violently with Smith.  He was evidently facing toward me in the darkness, for at the moment of our collision, he grasped my shoulder as in a vise.

“My God, Petrie! look behind you!” he whispered.

I was enabled to judge of the extent and reality of his fear by the fact that the strange subterfuge of addressing me always as Pearce was forgotten.  I turned, in a flash. . . .

Never can I forget what I saw.  Many strange and terrible memories are mine, memories stranger and more terrible than those of the average man; but this thing which now moved slowly down upon us through the impenetrable gloom of that haunted place, was (if the term be understood) almost absurdly horrible.  It was a medieval legend come to life in modern London; it was as though some horrible chimera of the black and ignorant past was become create and potent in the present.

A luminous hand—­a hand in the veins of which fire seemed to run so that the texture of the skin and the shape of the bones within were perceptible—­in short a hand of glowing, fiery flesh clutching a short knife or dagger which also glowed with the same hellish, internal luminance, was advancing upon us where we stood—­was not three paces removed!

What I did or how I came to do it, I can never recall.  In all my years I have experienced nothing to equal the stark panic which seized upon me then.  I know that I uttered a loud and frenzied cry; I know that I tore myself like a madman from Smith’s restraining grip . . .

“Don’t touch it!  Keep away, for your life!” I heard . . .

But, dimly I recollect that, finding the thing approaching yet nearer, I lashed out with my fists—­madly, blindly—­and struck something palpable . . .

What was the result, I cannot say.  At that point my recollections merge into confusion.  Something or some one (Smith, as I afterwards discovered) was hauling me by main force through the darkness; I fell a considerable distance onto gravel which lacerated my hands and gashed my knees.  Then, with the cool night air fanning my brow, I was running, running—­my breath coming in hysterical sobs.  Beside me fled another figure. . . .  And my definite recollections commence again at that point.  For this companion of my flight from the Gables threw himself roughly against me to alter my course.