The clock ticked on, keeping a kind of mocking, sardonic time with the far-off drumming that the night-wind brought. She wished it were a striking clock, so that she could know how long this eldritch vigil must last. She cursed the toughness of fiber that kept her from fainting, and wondered what sort of relief the dawn could bring, after all. Probably neighbors would pass--no doubt somebody would call--would they find her still sane? Was she still sane now? Morbidly listening, Audrey all at once became aware of something which she had to verify with every effort of her will before she could believe it; and which, once verified, she did not know whether to welcome or dread. _The distant beating of the Indian tom-toms had ceased._ They had always maddened her--but had not Walker regarded them as a bulwark against nameless evil from outside the universe? What were some of those things he had repeated to her in whispers after talking with Gray Eagle and the Wichita medicine-men? She did not relish this new and sudden silence, after all! There was something sinister about it. The loud-ticking clock seemed abnormal in its new loneliness. Capable at last of conscious motion, she shook the covers from her face and looked into the darkness toward the window. It must have cleared after the moon set, for she saw the square aperture distinctly against the background of stars. Then without warning came that shocking, unutterable sound--ugh!--that dull, putrid _pop_ of cleft skin and escaping poison in the dark. God!--Sally's story--that obscene stench, and this gnawing, clawing silence! It was too much. The bonds of muteness snapped, and the black night waxed reverberant with Audrey's screams of stark unbridled frenzy. Consciousness did not pass away with the shock. How merciful if only it had! Amidst the echoes of her shrieking Audrey still saw the star-sprinkled square of window ahead, and heard the doom-boding ticking of that frightful clock. Did she hear another sound? Was that square window still a perfect square? She was in no condition to weigh the evidence of her senses or distinguish between fact and hallucination. No--that window was _not_ a perfect square. _Something had encroached on the lower edge._ Nor was the ticking of the clock the only sound in the room. There was, beyond dispute, a heavy breathing neither her own nor poor Wolf's. Wolf slept very silently, and his wakeful wheezing was unmistakable. Then Audrey saw against the stars the black, demoniac silhouette of something anthropoid--the undulant bulk of a gigantic head and shoulders fumbling slowly toward her. "Y'aaaah! Y'aaaah! Go away! Go away! Go away, snake-devil! Go 'way, Yig! I didn't want to kill 'em--I was feared he'd be scairt of 'em. Don't, Yig, don't! I didn't go for to hurt yore chillen--don't come nigh me--don't change me into no spotted snake!" But the half-formless head and shoulders only lurched onward toward the bed, very silently.