Cranshaw did not sleep himself, however, for he lay motionless with his hand on an electric torch, and chuckled slightly as he listened to the irregular, panting breathing of the other man. Slowly through the surf-mutter there pierced other sounds—slight, thin, bird-like sounds, as though innumerable watches were ticking in the room. Hobson’s breathing sounded rather flurried, and Cranshaw’s thin lips parted in a grim smile as he stared up into the darkness.

Peculiar though the ticking sounds were, they were presently overborne by a still more peculiar sound—one which no human brain could define, without experience. It was a ghostly tapping, tapping, tapping that seemed to come from the floor; a clicking, irregular, metallic tapping. It ceased with uncanny suddenness.

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