The Golden Scorpion

his window, but did not touch the bed, therefore his awakening could not be due to this cause. He lay for some time listening for an

midnight London; sometimes, too, the clashing of buffers upon some siding of the Brighton rail

to ascribe both his awakening and also a feeling of uncomfortable tension of which he now became aware. He continued to listen, and, listening and hearing nothing, recognized with anger that

e awakened once thus in India-and to have found a great cobra coiled at his feet. His in

d his ears. He stood quite st

ownstairs in my stu

poured into the bedroom, the staircase would be in complete darkness. He walked barefooted across to the dressing-table and took up an electric torch which lay there. He had no

or above, from the a

to pour ice into his veins, it added the complementary touch to his panic. For it was a kind of low wail-a ghostly minor

that he had awakened from a nightmare and that this fiendish wailing was no more than an unu

o the staircase. Softly he began to descend. Before the study door he paused. T

tructure containing cabinets and drawers. He could detect nothing unusual in the appearance of the littered table. A tobacco jar stood there, a pipe resting in

eau drawers wa

ut he felt assured that all had been examined. The light switch was immediately beside the outer door, and Stuart walked over to it and switched on both lamps. Turning, he surveyed the brilliantly illuminated room

red. "No one has touched my papers. I

He had actually passed out intending to return to his r

of the open study door. He became persuaded anew that someone was hiding there, and snatching up an ash stick which lay upon a chair in t

windows ... and outlined upon this moon-bright scre

f a monk, but the outline of this phantom being suggested that of one of the Mise

w still. He sought to cry out in his terr

. The presence of the terrible cowled figure afforded a confirmation of

shadow of the cowled

moon-bathed lawn, its prospect terminated by high privet hedges. One of the F

always forget to shut these w

r a moment looking out across the empty l