The Blue Germ

Excerpt: ...blessed city will have it." A loud rap at the door interrupted me. I jumped up, darted across the room and threw myself under the bed. "Don't let anyone in," I whispered. The rap was repeated. Sarakoff's voice sounded without. "Let me in. It's all right. He's gone. The front door is bolted." I crawled out and unlocked the door. Sarakoff, looking rather pale, was standing in the passage. He carried a poker. "Symington-Tearle's in the coal-cellar," he announced. "He won't come out." I wiped my brow with a handkerchief. "Good heavens, Sarakoff," I exclaimed, Pg 141 "this kind of thing will lead to endless trouble. I had no idea the terror would be so uncontrollable." "I'm glad you feel it as I do," said the Russian. "When you threatened me with a pair of scissors this morning I felt mad with fear." "It's awful," I murmured. "We can't be too careful." We began to descend the stairs. "Sarakoff, you remember I told you about that dead sailor? I see now why that expression was on his face. It was the terror that he felt." "Extraordinary!" he muttered. "He couldn't have known. It must have been instinctive." "Instincts are like that," I said. "I don't suppose an animal knows anything about death, or even thinks of it, yet it behaves from the very first as if it knew. It's odd." A door opened at the far end of the hall, and Symington-Tearle emerged. There was a patch of coal-dust on his forehead. His hair, usually so flat and smooth that it seemed like a brass mirror, was now disordered. "Has he gone?" he enquired hoarsely. Pg 142 We nodded. I pointed to the chain on the door. "It's bolted," I said. "Come into the study." I led the way into the room. Tearle walked to the window, then to a chair, and finally took up a position before the fire. "This is extraordinary!" he exclaimed. "What do you make of it?" I asked. "I can make nothing of it. What's the matter with me? I never felt anything like that terror that came over me when Ballard approached me."...