“And did you think of the vampyre?” said one of the listeners.

“I thought of nothing else till I heard my clock, which is on the landing of the stairs above my bed-room, begin to strike twelve.”

“Ah!  I like to hear a clock sound in the night,” said one; “it puts one in mind of the rest of the world, and lets one know one isn’t all alone.”

“Very good.  The striking of the clock I should not at all have objected to; but it was what followed that did the business.”

“What, what?”

“Fair and softly; fair and softly.  Just hand me a light, Mr. Sprigs, if you please.  I’ll tell you all, gentlemen, in a moment or two.”

With the most provoking deliberation, the speaker re-lit his pipe, which had gone out while he was talking, and then, after a few whiffs, to assure himself that its contents had thoroughly ignited, he resumed,—­

“No sooner had the last sound of it died away, than I heard something on the stairs.”

“Yes, yes.”

“It was as if some man had given his foot a hard blow against one of the stairs; and he would have needed to have had a heavy boot on to do it.  I started up in bed and listened, as you may well suppose, not in the most tranquil state of mind, and then I heard an odd, gnawing sort of noise, and then another dab upon one of the stairs.”

“How dreadful!”

“It was.  What to do I knew not, or what to think, except that the vampyre had, by some means, got in at the attic window, and was coming down stairs to my room.  That seemed the most likely.  Then there was another groan, and then another heavy step; and, as they were evidently coming towards my door, I felt accordingly, and got out of bed, not knowing hardly whether I was on my head or my heels, to try and lock my door.”

“Ah, to be sure.”

“Yes; that was all very well, if I could have done it; but a man in such a state of mind as I was in is not a very sharp hand at doing anything.  I shook from head to foot.  The room was very dark, and I couldn’t, for a moment or two, collect my senses sufficient really to know which way the door lay.”

“What a situation!”

“It was.  Dab, dab, dab, came these horrid footsteps, and there was I groping about the room in an agony.  I heard them coming nearer and nearer to my door.  Another moment, and they must have reached it, when my hand struck against the lock.”

“What an escape!”

“No, it was not.”

“No?”

“No, indeed.  The key was on the outside, and you may well guess I was not over and above disposed to open the door to get at it.”

“No, no.”

“I felt regularly bewildered, I can tell you; it seemed to me as if the very devil himself was coming down stairs hopping all the way upon one leg.”

“How terrific!”

“I felt my senses almost leaving me; but I did what I could to hold the door shut just as I heard the strange step come from the last stair on to the landing.  Then there was a horrid sound, and some one began trying the lock of my door.”