The Beetle: A Mystery

was standing with what almost amounted to a gleam of preternatural perception. An instant before, the worl

tretch out my hand to thrust it through the aperture. Once inside, my hand would at least be dry. How it rained out there! My scanty clothing was soaked; I was w

window, it was, it mus

door, rouse the inmates, and call attention to their oversight,-the open window. The least they could do would be to reward me for my pains. But, suppose the place was empty, what would be the use of knocking? It would be to make a useless clatter. Possibly to disturb the neighbourhood, for nothing. And, even if the people were at home, I might go unrewarded. I had learned, in a hard school, the worl

e was just room to stand in comfort between the window and the wall. The ground felt to the foot as if it were cemented. Stooping down, I peered through the opening. I could see nothing. It was black as pitch inside. The bl

e act, then there would be an opportunity to describe the circumstances, and to explain how I was just on the poi

by a sound did it betray me. Bending over the sill I put my head and half my body into the room. But I was no forwarder. I could see nothing. Not a thing. For all I could tell the room might be un

legal, right, to its bare shelter. Who, with a heart in his bosom, would deny it me? Hardly the

ow, even then, of the turf in Richmond Park,-it caressed my instep, and sprang beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet, it was luxury after the puddly, uneven road. Should I, now I had ascertained that-the room was, at least, partially furnished, beat a retreat?

to wish I had not seen the house; that I had passed it by; that I had not come through the window; that I were safely out of it again. I became, on a sudden, aware, that something was with me in the room. There was nothing, ostensible, to lead me

t, played out; physically speaking, at my last counter; and, in an instant, without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a very curious sensation, the like of which I had never felt before, and the like of which I pray that

oment, I played the cur. And endeavoured to ask myself of what it was I was afraid. I was shivering at my own imaginings. What could be in the room, to have suffered me to open the window and to enter unopposed? Whatever it was, was surely to the full a

ined me, to save my soul I could not have said,-but I was constrained. My heart was palpitating in my bosom; I could hear it beat. I was trembling so that I could scarcely stand. I was overwhelmed by a fresh flood

specks of light. They had not been there a moment before, that I would swear. They were there now. They were eyes,-I told myself they were eyes. I had heard how cats' eyes gleam in the dark, though I had never seen them, and I said

a limb; my limbs were as if they were not mine. The eyes came on,-noiselessly. At first they were between two and three feet from the ground; but, on a sudden, there was a squelching sound, as if

undergone, and which I was, even then, still undergoing, had much to do with my conduct at that moment, and with the part I played in all that followed. Ordinarily I believe that I have as high a spirit as the average man, and as solid a resolution; but when one has bee

seemed to be almost the level of my feet. And, at last, they reached my feet. They never paused. On a sudden I felt something on my boot, and, with a sense of shrinking, horror, nausea, rendering me momentarily more helpless, I realised that the creature was beginning to ascend my legs, to climb my body. Even then what it was I could not tell,-it mounted me, apparently, with as much ease as if I had been horizontal in

ed its invasion was not the least part of my agony,-it was that helplessness which we know in dreadful dreams. I understood,

n the darkness. What it was there was still nothing to positively show, but the impression grew upon me that it was some member of the spider family, some monstrous member, of the like of which I had never heard or read. It was heavy, so heavy indeed, that I wondered how, with so slight a pressure, it managed to r

med 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, a

om! I already had my hand upon the sill, in another instant I should have been over it,-then, despite