The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
General
The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Ghost stories
I now became aware that something interposed between the page and
the light,--the page was overshadowed. I looked up, and I saw what
I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.
It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very
undefined outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it
had more resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to
anything else. As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air
and the light around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit
nearly touching the ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense
cold seized me. An iceberg before me could not more have chilled
me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have been more purely
physical. I feel convinced that it was not the cold caused by
fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I cannot say
with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking down on me
from the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them
clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-
blue light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height
on which I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the
eyes.
I strove to speak,--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think
to myself, "Is this fear? It is NOT fear!" I strove to rise,--in
vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed,
my impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed
to my volition,--that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a
force beyond man's, which one may feel PHYSICALLY in a storm at
sea, in a conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild
beast, or rather, perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt MORALLY.
Opposed to my will was another will, as far superior to its
strength as storm, fire, and shark are superior in material force
to the force of man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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