That wasn’t the worst, either, bad as all that was. The worst was
the fact that under the strain of all this he was slowly but surely
breaking down, and that in the end Mersereau might really succeed in
driving him out of life here—to do what, if anything, to him there?
What? It was such an evil pack by which he was surrounded, now, those
who lived just on the other side and hung about the earth, vile,
debauched creatures, as Pringle had described them, and as Davidson had
come to know for himself, fearing them and their ways so much, and
really seeing them at times.
Since he had come to be so weak and sensitive, he could see them for
himself—vile things that they were, swimming before his gaze in the
dark whenever he chanced to let himself be in the dark, which was not
often—friends of Mersereau, no doubt, and inclined to help him just for
the evil of it.
For this long time now Davidson had taken to sleeping with the light
on, wherever he was, only tying a handkerchief over his eyes to keep
out some of the glare. Even then he could see them—queer, misshapen
things, for all the world like wavy, stringy jellyfish or coils of
thick, yellowish-black smoke, moving about, changing in form at times,
yet always looking dirty or vile, somehow, and with those queer, dim,
reddish or greenish glows for eyes. It was sickening!