We waited breathlessly for the next manifestation. For several minutes the only sounds I could hear were those which drifted through the two open windows, one on each side of the fireplace--the clatter of frogs, the piping of nocturnal insects, the incessant muffled roar of the surf on the beach, and the occasional call of a night bird. Then a heavy poker, which had been leaning against the fireplace, clattered to the tiles, slid across them, and progressed with a queer jerky motion across the rug to the center of the room. It remained there for a moment, then twirled around and came straight toward me, still with the same jerky motion. When it seemed about to strike my feet I drew them up, half-expecting the thing to leap at me. Despite this singular and, to me, inexplicable phenomenon, Dr. Dorp maintained, unruffled, his look of complete absorption. The girl, however, was manifestly alarmed. “Be careful, Mr. Evans,” she said tensely. “I’m afraid it may hurt you.” Somehow I did not want to appear cowardly in the eyes of this girl. The heavy poker which had performed such amazing antics now lay quiescent, and apparently quite harmless, at my feet. Simulating a calmness which I was far from feeling, I bent over and picked the thing up. I was examining it minutely, half-expecting to find some mechanical attachment which would prove the whole thing a hoax, when it was suddenly and forcibly jerked from my grasp. It thumped to the floor, then spun half around and traveled jerkily back to the fireplace. “What made you drop it?” asked the doctor. “Wasn’t hot, was it?” When I told him that it had been jerked from my hands, he seemed surprised. “Are you sure you didn’t just drop it from--ah--nervousness?” “Positive.” “Hem. Strange.” We sat for several minutes without incident. Then I noticed that the lights were growing dim. I concentrated my gaze on the filaments of the reading lamp beside me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they were losing their incandescence. Presently the room was in darkness, save for the dim twilight which came through the two windows. I could barely discern the figures of my two companions, blending with the shadowy outlines of the chairs in which they sat. A strange, musty odor assailed my nostrils. I felt a cold touch on the back of my hand, and automatically jerked it away. Then a breeze, icy cold, chilled me to the marrow. The dog growled ominously. A light thud, as if some object had fallen, attracted my attention to the center of the room. Scarcely crediting the evidence of my senses, I saw a pale, luminous figure rising from the floor. The thing was irregular in outline, and swayed this way and that as if wafted by eddying air currents. Taller and taller it grew, until, when it had reached a height of nearly six feet, it bore some resemblance to a human figure shrouded in a white, filmy material.