For several minutes he crouched and listened.

He heard the chuckling laugh of the old councilor--and then an incoherent raving that set his blood tingling.

There is a horror in the sound of madness, a horror that creeps to the very pit of one's soul, that sends shivering dread from every nerve center, that causes one who is alone with it to sweat with a nameless fear.

It was the voice of madness that came from that little room.

Before it Nathaniel quailed as if a clammy hand had reached out from the darkness and gripped him by the throat.