We can see our way to the door well enough, now."
In order to carry out these instructions, it became necessary for me
to remain a few paces in the rear of my companion, and I think I have
never experienced such a pang of nameless terror as pierced me at the
moment of extinguishing the light; for Smith had not yet opened the
door, and the utter darkness of The Gables was horrible beyond
expression. Surely darkness is the most potent weapon of the Unknown.
I know that at the moment my hand left the switch I made for the door
as though the hosts of hell pursued me. I collided violently with
Smith. He was evidently facing toward me in the darkness, for at the
moment of our collision he grasped my shoulder as in a vice.
"My God, Petrie! look behind you!" he whispered.
I was enabled to judge of the extent and reality of his fear by the
fact that the strange subterfuge of addressing me always as Pearce was
forgotten. I turned in a flash....
Never can I forget what I saw. Many strange and terrible memories are
mine, memories stranger and more terrible than those of the average
man; but this _thing_ which now moved slowly down upon us through the
impenetrable gloom of that haunted place was (if the term be
understood) almost absurdly horrible. It was a mediaeval legend come to
life in modern London; it was as though some horrible chimera of the
black and ignorant past was become create and potent in the present.
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