But at the moment
of my headlong entrance, and before I had switched on the light, my
gaze automatically was directed to the pale moonbeam streaming through
the window and down on to one corner of the sheep skin rug beside the
bed.
There came a sound of faint and muffled coughing,
What with my recent awakening and the panic at my heart, I could not
claim that my vision was true; but across this moonbeam passed a sort
of grey streak, for all the world as though some long thin shape had
been withdrawn, snakelike, from the room, through the open window....
From somewhere outside the house, and below, I heard the cough again,
followed by a sharp cracking sound like the lashing of a whip.
I depressed the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leapt
forward to the bed a word picture of what I had seen formed in my
mind; and I found that I was thinking of a grey feather boa.
"Smith!" I cried (my voice seemed to pitch itself, unwilled, in a very
high key), "Smith, old man!"
He made no reply, and a sudden, sorrowful fear clutched at my
heart-strings. He was lying half out of bed flat upon his back, his
head at a dreadful angle with his body. As I bent over him and seized
him by the shoulders, I could see the whites of his eyes. His arms
hung limply, and his fingers touched the carpet.
"My God!" I whispered, "what has happened?"
I heaved him back on to the pillow, and looked anxiously into his
face.
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