I had never heard or read.  It was heavy, so heavy indeed, that I wondered how, with so slight a pressure, it managed to retain its hold,—­that it did so by the aid of some adhesive substance at the end of its legs I was sure,—­I could feel it stick.  Its weight increased as it ascended,—­and it smelt!  I had been for some time aware that it emitted an unpleasant, foetid odour; as it neared my face it became so intense as to be unbearable.

It was at my chest.  I became more and more conscious of an uncomfortable wobbling motion, as if each time it breathed its body heaved.  Its forelegs touched the bare skin about the base of my neck; they stuck to it,—­shall I ever forget the feeling?  I have it often in my dreams.  While it hung on with those in front it seemed to draw its other legs up after it.  It crawled up my neck, with hideous slowness, a quarter of an inch at a time, its weight compelling me to brace the muscles of my back.  It reached my chin, it touched my lips,—­and I stood still and bore it all, while it enveloped my face with its huge, slimy, evil-smelling body, and embraced me with its myriad legs.  The horror of it made me mad.  I shook myself like one stricken by the shaking ague.  I shook the creature off.  It squashed upon the floor.  Shrieking like some lost spirit, turning, I dashed towards the window.  As I went, my foot, catching in some obstacle, I fell headlong to the floor.

Picking myself up as quickly as I could I resumed my flight,—­rain or no rain, oh to get out of that room!  I already had my hand upon the sill, in another instant I should have been over it,—­then, despite my hunger, my fatigues, let anyone have stopped me if they could!—­when someone behind me struck a light.

CHAPTER III

THE MAN IN THE BED

The illumination which instantly followed was unexpected.  It startled me, causing a moment’s check, from which I was just recovering when a voice said,

‘Keep still!’

There was a quality in the voice which I cannot describe.  Not only an accent of command, but a something malicious, a something saturnine.  It was a little guttural, though whether it was a man speaking I could not have positively said; but I had no doubt it was a foreigner.  It was the most disagreeable voice I had ever heard, and it had on me the most disagreeable effect; for when it said, ‘Keep still!’ I kept still.  It was as though there was nothing else for me to do.

‘Turn round!’

I turned round, mechanically, like an automaton.  Such passivity was worse than undignified, it was galling; I knew that well.  I resented it with secret rage.  But in that room, in that presence, I was invertebrate.

When I turned I found myself confronting someone who was lying in bed.  At the head of the bed was a shelf.  On the shelf was a small lamp which gave the most brilliant light I had ever seen.  It caught me full in the eyes, having on me such a blinding effect that for some seconds I could see nothing.  Throughout the whole of that strange interview I cannot affirm that I saw clearly; the dazzling glare caused dancing specks to obscure my vision.  Yet, after an interval of time, I did see something; and what I did see I had rather have left unseen.