Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/221

 longed to a different being; he could scarcely recognize it. And then, suddenly, the old house loomed up directly before him, black as anything this side of the pit could be, with deeper black where the windows should be.

Even from where he stood he could see that the house was the veriest shell, standing erect simply because nobody had thought to push it down. As he looked at the house, the first drop of rain fell. He moved towards the veranda, and in the shelter of the overhanging roof of the veranda he lighted his lamp quickly. Suddenly the rain came down in full force, without any more warning or preliminary; the water fell in solid sheets, beating upon the house like a waterfall on the eternal rocks.

With his lantern dispelling feebly only a trifle of the surrounding darkness, Val pushed his way in through the door, which hung precariously on one hinge. There was a vicious stab of lightning, and a rumbling of thunder, first in the distance and gradually growing closer until it terminated in a tremendous clap that shook the house to the eaves.

Val found himself in the entrance foyer, bare of furniture of any kind, with plaster hanging perilously from the walls and ceiling, his lantern making flickering shadows on the walls and in the comers. He felt something brush his feet, and heard something padding away swiftly in the darkness. Rats! Well, he wasn’t afraid of rats—not after the kind he had known in the trenches.

He looked around the foyer swiftly. Outside the rain flooded the earth, a cloudburst of continuous pouring water that beat on the thin roof and walls of the house, making it reverberate like a drum. It splashed