seem ominous to Kara Kedi . . . perhaps it might seem less so to me. . . .
It is a serious matter in Kara Kedi's opinion; there is no longer any doubt about that! Kara Kedi descends from the armchair and walks toward the window. He walks resolutely, determinedly, like a strong nature meeting a crisis. When he left his chair, he did not leap down from the chair to the floor. He lengthened himself out, muscle after muscle, until he touched the floor with one paw, then with a second, then with a third, and a fourth. . . . I realize perfectly by this time that I must maintain an absolute silence. Kara Kedi's head moves forward till his nose touches the strangely disquieting window-pane. Then, very slowly, the great body swings around till it faces toward the wall which lay to the animal's left before. My windows are so low that I can see the great panther-profile now, standing out rather distinctly against the faint light of the window. I should not be able to see him so distinctly if the animal's hair had not suddenly risen to a perpendicular all over his body and begun, as I had seen it do once or twice before on very stormy days, to emit a myriad of tiny crackling electric sparks.
"Kara Kedi! Kitty! What's the matter with you?"
"Miau!"
It was not Kara Kedi's usual "miau" of inquiry, petition or complaint; it was merely an expression of impatience. Kara Kedi, so courteous on most occasions, is nervously irritated at my foolish prattle. I accept his rebuke, in all meekness. I shall not breathe another sound.
Kara Kedi's eyes are fixed on that left wall with glaring insistence. The eyes are two green flames of dazzling glory. All at once the great feline turns his head and gazes at me, and—it sounds supremely foolish—and I am unable to ward off a feeling of superstitious, dazed terror. I am as sure as Kara Kedi is that something ghastly is happening out beyond that wall. It is a feeling, nothing more. There is no trace of rational knowledge. . . .
Kara Kedi, phosphorescent from his tail to his mustache, moves entirely away from the window. Then he begins to creep straight along that left wall, as if he were following, step by step, some unknown being which moved or was moved slowly along on the other side of the wall. Kara Kedi is making no apparent use of his sense of smell. He is listening with all the intense keenness of his ears, and he is looking, looking with all his eyes. . . . The wall is covered with a plain gray paper, and I can't remember ever to have seen anything on that wall or that paper which had anything unusual about it. . . .
Oh—oh!
Kara Kedi draws himself together, and with all the power of his marvelous muscles he flings himself backward into the room, away from the wall. He runs around in a bewildered circle, his tail thrust out perfectly stiff. He looks this way and that for a place to flee to. I can see that he is driven by blind and agonizing terror. He is so troubled that his mind and his memory are not functioning; he has forgotten that I am there to guard and protect him as I have done so many times before. It is only after a long period of anguish and dashing madly hither and thither, that his dazed eyes chance to meet mine. The message of my presence readies his poor fuddled brain at last. And suddenly, like an animal hunted for prey, he flings himself toward me, he leaps to my knees, but he does not stop there. He crawls deep into my arms, up against my breast. He buries his head between my neck and my shoulder, but he is unable to resist the wretched fascination that keeps drawing
