unmistakable pallor.
"What in the world---?" he began, his lip quivering.
"Only that I am beginning to see light in this extraordinary affair,"returned the other calmly, "and, if my theory is correct, each monthwhen the moon is at the full should witness an increase in the activityof the phenomena."
"I don't see the connection," Colonel Wragge answered almost savagely,"but I am bound to say my diary bears you out." He wore the most puzzledexpression I have ever seen upon an honest face, but he abhorred thisadditional corroboration of an explanation that perplexed him.
"I confess," he repeated, "I cannot see the connection."
"Why should you?" said the doctor, with his first laugh that evening. Hegot up and hung the map upon the wall again. "But I do--because thesethings are my special study--and let me add that I have yet to comeacross a problem that is not natural, and has not a natural explanation.It's merely a question of how much one knows--and admits."
Colonel Wragge eyed him with a new and curious respect in his face. Buthis feelings were soothed. Moreover, the doctor's laugh and change ofmanner came as a relief to all, and broke the spell of grave suspensethat had held us so long. We all rose and stretched our limbs, and tooklittle walks about the room.
"I am glad, Dr. Silence, if you will allow me to say so, that you arehere," he said simply, "very glad indeed. And now I fear I have kept youboth up very late," with a glance to include me, "for you must be tired,and ready for your beds. I have told you all there is to tell," headded, "and tomorrow you must feel perfectly free to take any steps youthink necessary."
The end was abrupt, yet natural, for there was nothing more to say, andneither of these men talked for mere talking's sake.
Out in the cold and chilly hall he lit our candles and took us upstairs.The house was at rest and still, every one asleep. We moved softly.Through the windows on the stairs we saw the moonlight falling acrossthe lawn, throwing deep shadows. The nearer pine trees were just visiblein the distance, a wall of impenetrable blackness.
Our host came for a moment to our rooms to see that we had everything.He pointed to a coil of strong rope lying beside the window, fastened tothe wall by means of an iron ring. Evidently it had been recently putin.
"I don't think we shall need it," Dr. Silence said, with a smile.
"I trust not," replied our host gravely. "I sleep quite close to youacross the landing," he whispered, pointing to his door, "and if you--ifyou want anything in the night you will know where to find me."
He wished us pleasant dreams and disappeared down the passage into hisroom, shading the candle with his big muscular hand from the draughts.
John Silence stopped me a moment before I went.
"You know what it is?" I asked, with an excitement that even overcame myweariness.
"Yes," he said, "I'm almost sure. And you?"
"Not the smallest notion."
He looked disappointed, but not half as disappointed as I felt.
"Egypt," he whispered, "Egypt!"
II
Nothing happened to disturb me in the night--nothing, that is, except anightmare in which Colonel Wragge chased me amid thin streaks of fire,and his sister always prevented my escape by suddenly rising up out ofthe ground in her chair--dead. The deep baying of dogs woke me once,just before the dawn, it must have been, for I saw the window frameagainst the sky; there was a flash of lightning, too, I thought, as Iturned over in bed. And it was warm, for October oppressively warm.
It was after eleven o'clock when our host suggested going out with theguns, these, we understood, being a somewhat thin disguise for our truepurpose. Personally, I was glad to be in the open air, for theatmosphere of the house was heavy with presentiment. The sense ofimpending disaster hung over all. Fear stalked the passages, and lurkedin the corners of every room. It was a house haunted, but reallyhaunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite thoughincalculable influence that was actively alive, and dangerous. At theleast smell of smoke the entire household quivered. An odour of burning,I was convinced, would paralyse all the inmates. For the servants,though professedly ignorant by the master's unspoken orders, yet sharedthe common dread; and the hideous uncertainty, joined with this displayof so spiteful and calculated a spirit of malignity, provided a kind ofblack doom that draped not only the walls, but also the minds of thepeople living within them.
Only the bright and cheerful vision of old Miss Wragge being pushedabout the house in her noiseless chair, chatting and nodding briskly toevery one she met, prevented us from giving way entirely to thedepression which governed the majority. The sight of her was like agleam of sunshine through the depths of some ill-omened wood, and justas we went out I saw her being wheeled along by her attendant into thesunshine of the back lawn, and caught her cheery smile as she turned herhead and wished us good sport.
The morning was October at its best. Sunshine glistened on thedew-drenched grass and on leaves turned golden-red. The daintymessengers of coming hoar-frost were already in the air, a search forpermanent winter quarters. From the wide moors that everywhere swept upagainst the sky, like a purple sea splashed by the occasional grey ofrocky clefts, there stole down the cool and perfumed wind of the west.And the keen taste of the sea ran through all like a master-flavour,borne over the spaces perhaps by the seagulls that cried and circledhigh in the air.
But our host took little interest in this sparkling beauty, and had nothought of showing off the scenery of his property. His mind wasotherwise intent, and, for that matter, so were our own.
"Those bleak moors and hills stretch unbroken for hours," he said, witha sweep of the hand; "and over there, some four miles," pointing inanother direction, "lies S---- Bay, a long, swampy inlet of the sea,haunted by myriads of seabirds. On the other side of the house are theplantations and pine-woods. I thought we would get the dogs and go firstto the Twelve Acre Wood I told you about last night. It's quite near."
We found the dogs in the stable, and I recalled the deep baying of thenight when a fine bloodhound and two great Danes leaped out to greet us.Singular companions for guns, I thought to myself, as we struck outacross the fields and the great creatures bounded and ran beside us,nose to ground.
The conversation was scanty. John Silence's grave face did not encouragetalk. He wore the expression I knew well--that look of earnestsolicitude which meant that his whole being was deeply absorbed andpreoccupied. Frightened, I had never seen him, but anxious often--italways moved me to witness it--and he was anxious now.
"On the way back you shall see the laundry building," Colonel Wraggeobserved shortly, for he, too, found little to say. "We shall attractless attention then."
Yet not all the crisp beauty of the morning seemed able to dispel thefeelings of uneasy dread that gathered increasingly about our minds aswe went.
In a very few minutes a clump of pine trees concealed the house fromview, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of a densely grownplantation of conifers. Colonel Wragge stopped abruptly, and, producinga map from his pocket, explained once more very briefly its positionwith regard to the house. He showed how it ran up almost to the wallsof the laundry building--though at the moment beyond our actualview--and pointed to the windows of his sister's bedroom where the fireshad been. The room, now empty, looked straight on to the wood. Then,glancing nervously about him, and calling the dogs to heel, he proposedthat we should enter the plantation and make as thorough examination ofit as we thought worth while. The dogs, he added, might perhaps bepersuaded to accompany us a little way--and he pointed to where theycowered at his feet--but he doubted it. "Neither voice nor whip will getthem very far, I'm afraid," he said. "I know by experience."
"If you have no objection," replied Dr. Silence, with decision, andspeaking almost for the first time, "we will make our examinationalone--Mr. Hubbard and myself. It will be best so."
His tone was absolutely final, and the Colonel acquiesced so politelythat even a less intuitive man than myself must have seen that he
wasgenuinely relieved.
"You doubtless have good reasons," he said.
"Merely that I wish to obtain my impressions uncoloured. This delicateclue I am working on might be so easily blurred by the thought-currentsof another mind with strongly preconceived ideas."
"Perfectly. I understand," rejoined the soldier, though with anexpression of countenance that plainly contradicted his words. "Then Iwill wait here with the dogs; and we'll have a look at the laundry onour way home."
I turned once to look back as we clambered over the low stone wall builtby the late owner, and saw his straight, soldierly figure standing inthe sunlit field watching us with a curiously intent look on his face.There was something to me