How long I had read, I cannot say; the kettle on the hob was boiling, at
any rate, and the coals had burned themselves into a red-hot mass of
glowing cinders, when my attention was attracted--or rather, I should
say, distracted--by the sound of tapping outside the window-pane. First
I listened, and read on, then I laid down my book and listened more
attentively. It was exactly the noise which a person would make tapping
upon glass with one finger.
The wind had risen almost to a tempest, but, in the interval between
each blast, I could hear the tapping as distinctly as if it had been
inside my own skull--tap, tap, imperatively; tap, tap, tap, impatiently;
and when I rose to approach the casement, it seemed as if three more
fingers had joined in the summons, and were rapping for bare life.
"They have begun betimes," I thought; and taking my revolver in one
hand, with the other I opened the shutters, and put aside the blind.
As I did so, it seemed as if some dark body occupied one side of the
sash, while the tapping continued as madly as before.
It is as well to confess at once that I was for the moment frightened.
Subsequently I saw many wonderful sights, and had some terrible
experiences in the Uninhabited House; but I can honestly say, no sight
or experience so completely cowed me for the time being, as that dull
blackness to which I could assign no shape, that spirit-like rapping of
fleshless fingers, which seemed to increase in vehemence as I obeyed
its summons.
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