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With this I avoided the delay of striking matches;
but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadows
I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first a
step gained on this side of me and then on that. It was like a ragged
storm-cloud sweeping out the stars. Now and then one returned for a
minute, and was lost again. I was now almost frantic with the horror of
the coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me. I leaped panting
and dishevelled from candle to candle, in a vain struggle against that
remorseless advance.
I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong,
I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall. My
candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptly
this was blown out, as I swung it off the table by the wind of my sudden
movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But there
was light still in the room, a red light that staved off the shadows from
me.


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