Suddenly a sound,--not of the elements, not from without. A sound that in the deep peace of dreams smote no fiber of consciousness. It came again and again. It was the sound of a step ascending the stair. A slender shaft of light preceded it--the dim radiance showed first in a line under the door. Then the door slowly swung ajar, and Hugh Treherne entered, his candle in his hand--not the officer that the old Colonel had known and trusted in the years that tried men’s souls, who never broke faith or failed in a duty; not the piteous wreck whom he had met on the tow-head where the _Cherokee Rose_ lay aground, who wept on his neck and besought his aid; not the earnest altruist, who planned and contrived his escape from durance, through suffering and dread, to retrieve the injustice done to an old comrade’s heirs, and with his first recall of memory to reveal hidden treasure to enrich other men. This was Hugh Treherne, of the obsession, a man who believed himself possessed of the devil.
Colonel Kenwynton, gazing wincingly up with eyes heavy with sleep, and dazed by the glare of the candle held close to his face, hardly recognized the lineaments bent above him--wild, distorted, with a sinister smile, a queer furtive doubt, as if some wicked maniacal impulse debated with the vanishing instinct of reason in his brain.
The Colonel feared no man. The instinct of fear, if ever it had existed in him, was annulled, atrophied. But in this lonely house, in the presence of this strange and inexplicable possession, in all that this change, so curiously wrought, so radical, so sinister, intimated, his blood ran cold.
“He has come, Colonel,” hissed the strange man, for the Colonel could hardly make shift to recognize him, “the Devil has come!”
There was an aghast pause. Then Colonel Kenwynton understood the significance of the catastrophe. He plunged up in the bed, throwing off the cover, and gazed wildly around the room.
“The Devil has come?--Then skirmish to the front, Hugh! Hold him in check, while I get on my clothes, and I’ll flank him. By George, I’ve led a forlorn hope in my time, and I’m not to be intimidated by any little medical fiend like this!”
It was not long, however, that they sojourned at the sanatorium, but the doctor, who had heard of the suddenness of the seizure, warned Colonel Kenwynton that he had always best have help at hand in case of a relapse as sudden.