Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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'Something's up to-night,' he murmured between the puffs of his pipe. 'There's something in the air!'

He blew a long whiff of smoke and watched it melt away over a bed of mignonette among the blue shadows where the dusk gathered beneath the ilex trees. There, for a moment, his eye followed it, and just as it sifted off into transparency he became aware with a start of surprise that behind the bushes something was moving. He looked closer.

'It's stopped,' he muttered; 'but only a second ago it was moving—moving parallel with myself.'

Paul was well accustomed to watching the motions of wild creatures in the forest; his eye was trained like the eye of an Indian. The gloom at first was too dense for anything to differentiate itself from their general mass, but after a short inspection his sight detected little bits of shadow that were lighter or darker than other little bits. The moving thing began to assume outline.

'It's a person!' he decided. 'It's somebody watching—watching me! '

He took a step forward, and the figure likewise advanced, keeping even pace with him. He went faster, and the figure also went faster; it moved very silently, very softly, 'like an Indian,' he thought with admiration. Behind the Blue Summer-house, where they sometimes had tea on wet days, it disappeared.