It turned the corner and flitted along the slope, slowly but surely, in the direction of his shelter.

Its mode of progression, from the little he could make out in the darkness, was just such as he would have looked for in a huge octopus hauling itself along by its tentacles over the out-cropping rock-bones.
He could not rest there.

He must see.

He crawled along the ridge as quietly as he could manage it, and would have felt happier, whatever it was, spirit or monster, if he had had his gun.

Now and again it stopped, and when it stopped he lay flat to the ground and held his breath, lest it should discover him.