It was a fearful thought, and I shuddered as it came. But I could not answer it. I had never known so little of myself. In mind and body I was alert, expectant, calm. But there was that in me which I could not understand, a malignant remorseless spirit which had possession of my faculties, and which declined to be questioned or displaced. At its command I ceased to speculate, and began instead to listen. The house was as silent as a tomb. Some power beyond my cognizance presently plucked at my feet, and I found myself mounting the stairs. I remember passing one door and turning the handle of a second. Then I was in a room, dark as Erebus, creeping towards a bed, upon which lay an unseen sleeper, whose long, deep respirations guided my stealthy movements. What ensued appeared even then like nothing so much as the happenings of some wild and fevered dream. I paused beside the bed and my hands, drawn by an irresistible power, glided light as feathers across the coverlid, across a man's sleeping form, unto his throat. There they settled and took hold. I heard a strangled groan. A sudden bright light filled the room, and Sir Charles Venner's livid outstarting eyes glared into mine. His arms encircled me. With an almost super-human strength he writhed beneath me from the bed, and we fell together with a full but heavy crash upon the floor. With a fierce and terrible satisfaction I watched his face blacken and swell, his tongue thicken and protrude from his ghastly open mouth. Before, however, I could kill him, a warning step and a loud cry sounded from the door. Quick as lightning I sprang erect and turned. The negro surgeon, Beudant, Jussieu's companion, was rushing towards me, an uplifted bar of iron in his hand to strike. I eluded him, and, springing to the fireplace, seized a poker. I had quite forgotten my revolver. For a moment we fenced like swordsmen with our curious weapons, speaking no word, but striking heavily and warding, filling the place with the loud clang of steel. He played so well that I could not reach his skull. But soon I remembered having read in some old book of travel that a negro's vulnerable point is his shin. Clenching my teeth I made a ferocious feint at his head. He riposted, as with a rapier, at my shoulder, but I disregarded utterly so poor a thrust, since his bar was blunt, and I brought my weapon down with a sweeping swish across his outstretched knee. He uttered a wild shriek and, dropping his bar, sank to the floor, howling dismally. Only then I remembered my pistol. Snatching it forth I held it to his head. "Stop that noise, or die!" I muttered savagely. He obeyed, but not for longer than a second was I permitted to remain master of the situation. "Drop that pistol, villain," cried a voice from the doorway.