Recovering myself, I passed a hand over it.  Yes, undoubtedly it was a table-leg and the table lay topsy-turvy.  But how came it so?  Who had upset it, and why?  I took another step, sideways, and my boot struck against something light, and, by its sound, hollow and metallic.  Stooping very cautiously—­for by this time I had taken alarm and was holding my breath—­I passed a hand lightly over the floor.  My fingers encountered the object I had kicked aside.  It was a tinder-box.  I clutched it softly, and as softly drew myself upright again.  Could I dare to strike a light?  The overturned table:  What could be the meaning of it?  It could not have been overturned by Captain Coffin?  By whom then?  Some one must have visited the lodgings in his absence.

Some one, for aught I knew, was in the room at this moment!—­ Some one, back there against the wall, waiting only for me to strike a light!  I declare that at the thought I came near to screaming aloud, casting the tinder-box from me and rushing out blindly into the court.

I dare say that I stood for a couple of minutes, motionless, listening not with my ears only but with every hair of my head.  Nevertheless, my wits must have been working somehow; for my first action, when I plucked up nerve enough for it, was an entirely sensible one.  I set the tinder-box on the floor between my heels, felt for the table, and righted it; then, picking up the box again, set it on the table and twisted off the lid.  I found flint and steel at once, dipped my fingers into the box to make sure of the tinder and the brimstone matches, and so, after another pause to listen, essayed to strike out the spark.

This, for a pair of trembling hands, proved no easy business, and at first promised to be a hopeless one.  But the worst moment arrived when, the spark struck, I stooped to blow it upon the tinder, the glow of which must light up my own face while it revealed to me nothing of the surrounding darkness.  Still, it had to be done; and, keeping a tight hold on what little remained of my courage, I thrust in the match and ignited it.

While the brimstone caught fire and bubbled I drew myself erect to face the worst.  But for what met my eyes as the flame caught hold of the stick, even the overturned table had not prepared me.

The furniture of the room lay pell-mell, as though a cyclone had swept through it.  The very pictures hung askew.  Of the drawers in the dresser some had been pulled out bodily, others stood half open, and all had been ransacked; while the fragments of china strewn along the shelves or scattered across the floor could only be accounted for by some blind ferocity of destruction—­a madman, for instance, let loose upon it, and striking at random with a stick.  As the match burned low in my fingers I looked around hastily for a candle, scanning the dresser, the mantel-shelf, the hugger-mugger of linen, crockery, wall-ornaments, lying in a trail along the floor.  But no candle could I discover; so I lit a second match from the first and turned towards the sacred cupboard in the corner.