As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table.  With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, then into the corner, and then into the window, relighting three, as two more vanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a better way, I dropped the matches on the iron-bound deed-box in the corner, and caught up the bedroom candlestick.  With this I avoided the delay of striking matches; but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadows I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first a step gained on this side of me and then on that.  It was like a ragged storm-cloud sweeping out the stars.  Now and then one returned for a minute, and was lost again.  I was now almost frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me.  I leaped panting and dishevelled from candle to candle, in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance.

I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong, I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall.  My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose.  Abruptly this was blown out, as I swung it off the table by the wind of my sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed.  But there was light still in the room, a red light that staved off the shadows from me.  The fire!  Of course I could still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it!

I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals, and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps towards the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together and vanished, and as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my vision, and crushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain.  The candle fell from my hand.  I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice, screamed with all my might—­once, twice, thrice.  Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.  I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and, with my head bowed and my arms over my face, made a run for the door.

But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and struck myself heavily against the corner of the bed.  I staggered back, turned, and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture.  I have a vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in the darkness, of a cramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I darted to and fro, of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then I remember no more.

I opened my eyes in daylight.  My head was roughly bandaged, and the man with the withered arm was watching my face.  I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect.  I rolled my eyes into the corner, and saw the old woman, no longer abstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue phial into a glass.  “Where am I?” I asked; “I seem to remember you, and yet I cannot remember who you are.”