"Don't like dark." Miss Cornelia handed him one of the two precious candles.

Then his present terror reminded her of that one other occasion when she had seen him lose completely his stoic Oriental calm.
"Billy," she queried, "what did you see when you came running down the stairs before we were locked in, down below ?" The candle shook like a reed in Billy's grasp.
"Nothing!" he gasped with obvious untruth, though it did not seem so much as if he wished to conceal what he had seen as that he was trying to convince himself he had seen nothing.
"Nothing!" said Lizzie scornfully.

"It was some nothing that would make him drop a bottle of whisky!" But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling apologetically.
"Thought I saw ghost," he said, and went out and down the stairs, the candlelight flickering, growing fainter, and finally disappearing.
Silence and eerie darkness enveloped them all as they waited.

And suddenly out of the blackness came a sound.
Something was flapping and thumping around the room.
"That's damned odd." muttered Beresford uneasily.

"There is something moving around the room." "It's up near the ceiling!" cried Bailey as the sound began again.
Lizzie began a slow wail of doom and disaster.
"Oh--h--h--h--" "Good God!" cried Beresford abruptly.