He
had a feeling that it contained the most fearful of all these monsters;
and it was not without an effort that he drew the cloth away. But no
sooner had he done this than something sprang up, so that instinctively
he started back, and it began to gibber in piercing tones. These were the
unearthly sounds that they had heard. It was not a voice, it was a kind
of raucous crying, hoarse yet shrill, uneven like the barking of a dog,
and appalling. The sounds came forth in rapid succession, angrily, as
though the being that uttered them sought to express itself in furious
words. It was mad with passion and beat against the glass walls of its
prison with clenched fists. For the hands were human hands, and the
body, though much larger, was of the shape of a new-born child. The
creature must have stood about four feet high. The head was horribly
misshapen. The skull was enormous, smooth and distended like that of a
hydrocephalic, and the forehead protruded over the face hideously. The
features were almost unformed, preternaturally small under the great,
overhanging brow; and they had an expression of fiendish malignity.
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