Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once
describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he
chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face _of
crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or would
not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain.
But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness
it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one
corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though
he knew how perilous a sound was--he could not keep back a cry of
disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him
upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window
backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and
the linen face was thrust close into his own. At this, almost the last
possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the Colonel
burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at
the window. When he reached the figures only one was left. Parkins sank
forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a
tumbled heap of bed-clothes.
Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone
else out of the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed; and himself,
wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of the night.
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