“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that surged up in me, mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses, the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind, unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way. The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation. The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque. “So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along, looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back--to find, as reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along with its nose to the ground. “I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me, and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly, dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze--I can see it now; its eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt seem a puzzle to you, sir--it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact.