My nerves were so wrought up, while I stood there holding my breath to catch some sound from its gloomy interior, that I was near crying out in abject terror at every step. An owl, startled from the limb of a tree over my head, flew lazily into the upper air and across the thicket, disturbing other birds that set up a chattering protest. Stealthily I crept from window to window, but the blinds were closed fast. Finally I came to a door that seemed to open into the main part of the building. Desperate under the strain to which my nerves had been subjected, I knocked loudly on its upper panels. The sound echoed through the still house and the thickly wooded grounds around it. "God help me!" I whispered; "will that echo never cease?" It kept repeating itself from tree to tree, until I covered my ears to stop its weird reverberations. Then I heard a low threatening sound, deep and resonant as the lower tones of a great organ, that gradually grew louder until its volume filled the air, and then died away, while its echoes went chasing each other among the trees. In the silence which followed, my ear caught another sound the like of which I had never heard before. A dozen clocks being wound by quick turns on all sides of me would, I fancy, have produced a similar effect. It was evident to me that my knocking had disturbed my uncle's pets, but I was not to be frightened away. Hearing no movement in the house I tried the door, and to my astonishment it swung open. A peculiar odor, such as one notices in a house that has long stood empty, came to my nostrils, and again I heard that fateful whirring, but in the darkness I could discern no object.
As I crossed the threshold the sound grew louder, and to my horror the door closed suddenly behind me. Hurriedly striking a match, I held it above my head and peered about me. Its light revealed a small apartment finished in polished wood. Along the angle of the floor was an opening, two or three inches high, into the side walls. And half way up the wall in front of me I saw a face--the face of a maniac it seemed to be--pale and wan, with strange, inhuman eyes. I had scarcely glanced at it when the match dropped from my fingers and fell slowly through the air, going out as it struck the floor. My hands were cold, but so wet with perspiration that they stuck to my clothing when I felt for a candle which I had brought with me.