"Down he came plunging. There was a glimpse of a blood-covered visage; then he was past."
Chapter 1
The Mysterious Visitor
The forenoon of that momentous August day (how momentous Time, like unto some spirit-shaking vision, was soon and swiftly to show us) had been bright and sunny. Snowy cumuli sailed along before a breeze from the north. When the wind comes from that quarter here in Seattle, it means good weather. But there was something sinister about this one.
As the day advanced, the clouds increased in number and volume; by
noon the whole sky was overcast. And now? It was midafternoon now; a gale from the south was savagely flinging and dashing the rain against the windows, and it had become so dark that Milton Rhodes had turned on one of the library lamps. There was something strange, unearthly about that darkness which so suddenly had fallen upon us.
"Too fierce to last long, Bill," observed Milton, raising his head and listening to the beating of the rain and the roar of the wind.
He arose from his chair, went over to one of the southern windows and stood looking out into the storm.
