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The Lair of the White Worm
     The Lair of the White Worm
     by Bram Stoker

      CHAPTER I--ADAM SALTON ARRIVES

     Adam Salton sauntered into the Empire Club, Sydney, and found awaiting him
a letter from his grand-uncle.  He had first heard from the old gentleman less
than a year before, when Richard Salton had claimed kinship, stating that he had
been unable to write earlier, as he had found it very difficult to trace his
grand-nephew's address.  Adam was delighted and replied cordially; he had often
heard his father speak of the older branch of the family with whom his people
had long lost touch.  Some interesting correspondence had ensued.  Adam eagerly
opened the letter which had only just arrived, and conveyed a cordial invitation
to stop with his grand-uncle at Lesser Hill, for as long a time as he could
spare.
     "Indeed," Richard Salton went on, "I am in hopes that you will make your
permanent home here.  You see, my dear boy, you and I are all that remain of our
race, and it is but fitting that you should succeed me when the time comes.  In
this year of grace, 1860, I am close on eighty years of age, and though we have
been a long-lived race, the span of life cannot be prolonged beyond reasonable
bounds. I am prepared to like you, and to make your home with me as happy as you
could wish.  So do come at once on receipt of this, and find the welcome I am
waiting to give you.  I send, in case such may make matters easy for you, a
banker's draft for 200 pounds.  Come soon, so that we may both of us enjoy many
happy days together.  If you are able to give me the pleasure of seeing you,
send me as soon as you can a letter telling me when to expect you.  Then when
you arrive at Plymouth or Southampton or whatever port you are bound for, wait
on board, and I will meet you at the earliest hour possible."
      Old Mr. Salton was delighted when Adam's reply arrived and sent a groom
hot-foot to his crony, Sir Nathaniel de Salis, to inform him that his
grand-nephew was due at Southampton on the twelfth of June.
     Mr. Salton gave instructions to have ready a carriage early on the
important day, to start for Stafford, where he would catch the 11.40 a.m. train.
 He would stay that night with his grand-nephew, either on the ship, which would
be a new experience for him, or, if his guest should prefer it, at a hotel.  In
either case they would start in the early morning for home.  He had given
instructions to his bailiff to send the postillion carriage on to Southampton,
to be ready for their journey home, and to arrange for relays of his own horses
to be sent on at once.  He intended that his grand-nephew, who had been all his
life in Australia, should see something of rural England on the drive.  He had
plenty of young horses of his own breeding and breaking, and could depend on a
journey memorable to the young man.  The luggage would be sent on by rail to
Stafford, where one of his carts would meet it.  Mr. Salton, during the journey
to Southampton, often wondered if his grand-nephew was as much excited as he was
at the idea of meeting so near a relation for the first time; and it was with an
effort that he controlled himself.  The endless railway lines and switches round
the Southampton Docks fired his anxiety afresh.
     As the train drew up on the dockside, he was getting his hand traps
together, when the carriage door was wrenched open and a young man jumped in.
     "How are you, uncle?  I recognised you from the photo you sent me! I wanted
to meet you as soon as I could, but everything is so strange to me that I didn't
quite know what to do.  However, here I am.  I am glad to see you, sir.  I have
been dreaming of this happiness for thousands of miles; now I find that the
reality beats all the dreaming!"  As he spoke the old man and the young one were
heartily wringing each other's hands.
     The meeting so auspiciously begun proceeded well.  Adam, seeing that the
old man was interested in the novelty of the ship, suggested that he should stay
the night on board, and that he would himself be ready to start at any hour and
go anywhere that the other suggested. This affectionate willingness to fall in
with his own plans quite won the old man's heart.  He warmly accepted the
invitation, and at once they became not only on terms of affectionate
relationship, but almost like old friends.  The heart of the old man, which had
been empty for so long, found a new delight.  The young man found, on landing in
the old country, a welcome and a surrounding in full harmony with all his dreams
throughout his wanderings and solitude, and the promise of a fresh and
adventurous life.  It was not long before the old man accepted him to full
relationship by calling him by his Christian name.  After a long talk on affairs
of interest, they retired to the cabin, which the elder was to share.  Richard
Salton put his hands affectionately on the boy's shoulders--though Adam was in
his twenty-seventh year, he was a boy, and always would be, to his grand-uncle.
     "I am so glad to find you as you are, my dear boy--just such a young man as
I had always hoped for as a son, in the days when I still had such hopes.
However, that is all past.  But thank God there is a new life to begin for both
of us.  To you must be the larger part-- but there is still time for some of it
to be shared in common.  I have waited till we should have seen each other to
enter upon the subject; for I thought it better not to tie up your young life to
my old one till we should have sufficient personal knowledge to justify such a
venture.  Now I can, so far as I am concerned, enter into it freely, since from
the moment my eyes rested on you I saw my son--as he shall be, God willing--if
he chooses such a course himself."
     "Indeed I do, sir--with all my heart!"
     "Thank you, Adam, for that."  The old, man's eyes filled and his voice
trembled.  Then, after a long silence between them, he went on:  "When I heard
you were coming I made my will.  It was well that your interests should be
protected from that moment on.  Here is the deed--keep it, Adam.  All I have
shall belong to you; and if love and good wishes, or the memory of them, can
make life sweeter, yours shall be a happy one.  Now, my dear boy, let us turn
in.  We start early in the morning and have a long drive before us.  I hope you
don't mind driving?  I was going to have the old travelling carriage in which my
grandfather, your great-grand-uncle, went to Court when William IV. was king.
It is all right--they built well in those days--and it has been kept in perfect
order.  But I think I have done better:  I have sent the carriage in which I
travel myself. The horses are of my own breeding, and relays of them shall take
us all the way.  I hope you like horses?  They have long been one of my greatest
interests in life."
     "I love them, sir, and I am happy to say I have many of my own.  My father
gave me a horse farm for myself when I was eighteen.  I devoted myself to it,
and it has gone on.  Before I came away, my steward gave me a memorandum that we
have in my own place more than a thousand, nearly all good."
     "I am glad, my boy.  Another link between us."
     "Just fancy what a delight it will be, sir, to see so much of England--and
with you!"
     "Thank you again, my boy.  I will tell you all about your future home and
its surroundings as we go.  We shall travel in old- fashioned state, I tell you.
 My grandfather always drove four-in- hand; and so shall we."
     "Oh, thanks, sir, thanks.  May I take the ribbons sometimes?"
     "Whenever you choose, Adam.  The team is your own.  Every horse we use
to-day is to be your own."
     "You are too generous, uncle!"
     "Not at all.  Only an old man's selfish pleasure.  It is not every day that
an heir to the old home comes back.  And--oh, by the way. . . No, we had better
turn in now--I shall tell you the rest in the morning."
      CHAPTER II--THE CASWALLS OF CASTRA REGIS

     Mr. Salton had all his life been an early riser, and necessarily an early
waker.  But early as he woke on the next morning--and although there was an
excuse for not prolonging sleep in the constant whirr and rattle of the "donkey"
engine winches of the great ship--he met the eyes of Adam fixed on him from his
berth.  His grand-nephew had given him the sofa, occupying the lower berth
himself.  The old man, despite his great strength and normal activity, was
somewhat tired by his long journey of the day before, and the prolonged and
exciting interview which followed it.  So he was glad to lie still and rest his
body, whilst his mind was actively exercised in taking in all he could of his
strange surroundings.  Adam, too, after the pastoral habit to which he had been
bred, woke with the dawn, and was ready to enter on the experiences of the new
day whenever it might suit his elder companion.  It was little wonder, then,
that, so soon as each realised the other's readiness, they simultaneously jumped
up and began to dress.  The steward had by previous instructions early breakfast
prepared, and it was not long before they went down the gangway on shore in
search of the carriage.
     They found Mr. Salton's bailiff looking out for them on the dock, and he
brought them at once to where the carriage was waiting in the street.  Richard
Salton pointed out with pride to his young companion the suitability of the
vehicle for every need of travel. To it were harnessed four useful horses, with
a postillion to each pair.
     "See," said the old man proudly, "how it has all the luxuries of useful
travel--silence and isolation as well as speed.  There is nothing to obstruct
the view of those travelling and no one to overhear what they may say.  I have
used that trap for a quarter of a century, and I never saw one more suitable for
travel.  You shall test it shortly.  We are going to drive through the heart of
England; and as we go I'll tell you what I was speaking of last night.  Our
route is to be by Salisbury, Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham, Worcester, Stafford; and
so home."
     Adam remained silent a few minutes, during which he seemed all eyes, for he
perpetually ranged the whole circle of the horizon.
     "Has our journey to-day, sir," he asked, "any special relation to what you
said last night that you wanted to tell me?"
     "Not directly; but indirectly, everything."
     "Won't you tell me now--I see we cannot be overheard--and if anything
strikes you as we go along, just run it in.  I shall understand."
     So old Salton spoke:
     "To begin at the beginning, Adam.  That lecture of yours on 'The Romans in
Britain,' a report of which you posted to me, set me thinking--in addition to
telling me your tastes.  I wrote to you at once and asked you to come home, for
it struck me that if you were fond of historical research--as seemed a
fact--this was exactly the place for you, in addition to its being the home of
your own forbears.  If you could learn so much of the British Romans so far away
in New South Wales, where there cannot be even a tradition of them, what might
you not make of the same amount of study on the very spot.  Where we are going
is in the real heart of the old kingdom of Mercia, where there are traces of all
the various nationalities which made up the conglomerate which became Britain."
     "I rather gathered that you had some more definite--more personal reason
for my hurrying.  After all, history can keep--except in the making!"
     "Quite right, my boy.  I had a reason such as you very wisely guessed.  I
was anxious for you to be here when a rather important phase of our local
history occurred."
     "What is that, if I may ask, sir?"
     "Certainly.  The principal land-owner of our part of the county is on his
way home, and there will be a great home-coming, which you may care to see.  The
fact is, for more than a century the various owners in the succession here, with
the exception of a short time, have lived abroad."
     "How is that, sir, if I may ask?"
     "The great house and estate in our part of the world is Castra Regis, the
family seat of the Caswall family.  The last owner who lived here was Edgar
Caswall, grandfather of the man who is coming here--and he was the only one who
stayed even a short time.  This man's grandfather, also named Edgar--they keep
the tradition of the family Christian name--quarrelled with his family and went
to live abroad, not keeping up any intercourse, good or bad, with his relatives,
although this particular Edgar, as I told you, did visit his family estate, yet
his son was born and lived and died abroad, while his grandson, the latest
inheritor, was also born and lived abroad till he was over thirty--his present
age.  This was the second line of absentees.  The great estate of Castra Regis
has had no knowledge of its owner for five generations--covering more than a
hundred and twenty years.  It has been well administered, however, and no tenant
or other connected with it has had anything of which to complain.  All the same,
there has been much natural anxiety to see the new owner, and we are all excited
about the event of his coming.  Even I am, though I own my own estate, which,
though adjacent, is quite apart from Castra Regis.--Here we are now in new
ground for you.  That is the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and when we leave
that we shall be getting close to the old Roman county, and you will naturally
want your eyes.  So we shall shortly have to keep our minds on old Mercia.
However, you need not be disappointed.  My old friend, Sir Nathaniel de Salis,
who, like myself, is a free- holder near Castra Regis--his estate, Doom Tower,
is over the border of Derbyshire, on the Peak--is coming to stay with me for the
festivities to welcome Edgar Caswall.  He is just the sort of man you will like.
 He is devoted to history, and is President of the Mercian Archaeological
Society.  He knows more of our own part of the country, with its history and its
people, than anyone else.  I expect he will have arrived before us, and we three
can have a long chat after dinner.  He is also our local geologist and natural
historian.  So you and he will have many interests in common. Amongst other
things he has a special knowledge of the Peak and its caverns, and knows all the
old legends of prehistoric times."
     They spent the night at Cheltenham, and on the following morning resumed
their journey to Stafford.  Adam's eyes were in constant employment, and it was
not till Salton declared that they had now entered on the last stage of their
journey, that he referred to Sir Nathaniel's coming.
     As the dusk was closing down, they drove on to Lesser Hill, Mr. Salton's
house.  It was now too dark to see any details of their surroundings.  Adam
could just see that it was on the top of a hill, not quite so high as that which
was covered by the Castle, on whose tower flew the flag, and which was all
ablaze with moving lights, manifestly used in the preparations for the
festivities on the morrow.  So Adam deferred his curiosity till daylight.  His
grand- uncle was met at the door by a fine old man, who greeted him warmly.
     "I came over early as you wished.  I suppose this is your grand- nephew--I
am glad to meet you, Mr. Adam Salton.  I am Nathaniel de Salis, and your uncle
is one of my oldest friends."
     Adam, from the moment of their eyes meeting, felt as if they were already
friends.  The meeting was a new note of welcome to those that had already
sounded in his ears.
     The cordiality with which Sir Nathaniel and Adam met, made the imparting of
information easy.  Sir Nathaniel was a clever man of the world, who had
travelled much, and within a certain area studied deeply.  He was a brilliant
conversationalist, as was to be expected from a successful diplomatist, even
under unstimulating conditions. But he had been touched and to a certain extent
fired by the younger man's evident admiration and willingness to learn from him.
Accordingly the conversation, which began on the most friendly basis, soon
warmed to an interest above proof, as the old man spoke of it next day to
Richard Salton.  He knew already that his old friend wanted his grand-nephew to
learn all he could of the subject in hand, and so had during his journey from
the Peak put his thoughts in sequence for narration and explanation.
Accordingly, Adam had only to listen and he must learn much that he wanted to
know.  When dinner was over and the servants had withdrawn, leaving the three
men at their wine, Sir Nathaniel began.
     "I gather from your uncle--by the way, I suppose we had better speak of you
as uncle and nephew, instead of going into exact relationship?  In fact, your
uncle is so old and dear a friend, that, with your permission, I shall drop
formality with you altogether and speak of you and to you as Adam, as though you
were his son."
     "I should like," answered the young man, "nothing better!"
     The answer warmed the hearts of both the old men, but, with the usual
avoidance of Englishmen of emotional subjects personal to themselves, they
instinctively returned to the previous question. Sir Nathaniel took the lead.
     "I understand, Adam, that your uncle has posted you regarding the
relationships of the Caswall family?"
     "Partly, sir; but I understood that I was to hear minuter details from
you--if you would be so good."
     "I shall be delighted to tell you anything so far as my knowledge goes.
Well, the first Caswall in our immediate record is an Edgar, head of the family
and owner of the estate, who came into his kingdom just about the time that
George III. did.  He had one son of about twenty-four.  There was a violent
quarrel between the two.  No one of this generation has any idea of the cause;
but, considering the family characteristics, we may take it for granted that
though it was deep and violent, it was on the surface trivial.
     "The result of the quarrel was that the son left the house without a
reconciliation or without even telling his father where he was going.  He never
came back again.  A few years after, he died, without having in the meantime
exchanged a word or a letter with his father.  He married abroad and left one
son, who seems to have been brought up in ignorance of all belonging to him.
The gulf between them appears to have been unbridgable; for in time this son
married and in turn had a son, but neither joy nor sorrow brought the sundered
together.  Under such conditions no RAPPROCHEMENT was to be looked for, and an
utter indifference, founded at best on ignorance, took the place of family
affection--even on community of interests. It was only due to the watchfulness
of the lawyers that the birth of this new heir was ever made known.  He actually
spent a few months in the ancestral home.
     "After this the family interest merely rested on heirship of the estate.
As no other children have been born to any of the newer generations in the
intervening years, all hopes of heritage are now centred in the grandson of this
man.
     "Now, it will be well for you to bear in mind the prevailing
characteristics of this race.  These were well preserved and unchanging; one and
all they are the same:  cold, selfish, dominant, reckless of consequences in
pursuit of their own will.  It was not that they did not keep faith, though that
was a matter which gave them little concern, but that they took care to think
beforehand of what they should do in order to gain their own ends.  If they
should make a mistake, someone else should bear the burthen of it.  This was so
perpetually recurrent that it seemed to be a part of a fixed policy.  It was no
wonder that, whatever changes took place, they were always ensured in their own
possessions.  They were absolutely cold and hard by nature.  Not one of them--so
far as we have any knowledge--was ever known to be touched by the softer
sentiments, to swerve from his purpose, or hold his hand in obedience to the
dictates of his heart.  The pictures and effigies of them all show their
adherence to the early Roman type.  Their eyes were full; their hair, of raven
blackness, grew thick and close and curly. Their figures were massive and
typical of strength.
     "The thick black hair, growing low down on the neck, told of vast physical
strength and endurance.  But the most remarkable characteristic is the eyes.
Black, piercing, almost unendurable, they seem to contain in themselves a
remarkable will power which there is no gainsaying.  It is a power that is
partly racial and partly individual:  a power impregnated with some mysterious
quality, partly hypnotic, partly mesmeric, which seems to take away from eyes
that meet them all power of resistance--nay, all power of wishing to resist.
With eyes like those, set in that all-commanding face, one would need to be
strong indeed to think of resisting the inflexible will that lay behind.
     "You may think, Adam, that all this is imagination on my part, especially
as I have never seen any of them.  So it is, but imagination based on deep
study.  I have made use of all I know or can surmise logically regarding this
strange race.  With such strange compelling qualities, is it any wonder that
there is abroad an idea that in the race there is some demoniac possession,
which tends to a more definite belief that certain individuals have in the past
sold themselves to the Devil?
     "But I think we had better go to bed now.  We have a lot to get through
to-morrow, and I want you to have your brain clear, and all your
susceptibilities fresh.  Moreover, I want you to come with me for an early walk,
during which we may notice, whilst the matter is fresh in our minds, the
peculiar disposition of this place--not merely your grand-uncle's estate, but
the lie of the country around it.  There are many things on which we may
seek--and perhaps find-- enlightenment.  The more we know at the start, the more
things which may come into our view will develop themselves."

     CHAPTER III--DIANA'S GROVE

     Curiosity took Adam Salton out of bed in the early morning, but when he had
dressed and gone downstairs; he found that, early as he was, Sir Nathaniel was
ahead of him.  The old gentleman was quite prepared for a long walk, and they
started at once.
     Sir Nathaniel, without speaking, led the way to the east, down the hill.
When they had descended and risen again, they found themselves on the eastern
brink of a steep hill.  It was of lesser height than that on which the Castle
was situated; but it was so placed that it commanded the various hills that
crowned the ridge. All along the ridge the rock cropped out, bare and bleak, but
broken in rough natural castellation.  The form of the ridge was a segment of a
circle, with the higher points inland to the west.  In the centre rose the
Castle, on the highest point of all.  Between the various rocky excrescences
were groups of trees of various sizes and heights, amongst some of which were
what, in the early morning light, looked like ruins.  These--whatever they
were--were of massive grey stone, probably limestone rudely cut--if indeed they
were not shaped naturally.  The fall of the ground was steep all along the
ridge, so steep that here and there both trees and rocks and buildings seemed to
overhang the plain far below, through which ran many streams.
     Sir Nathaniel stopped and looked around, as though to lose nothing of the
effect.  The sun had climbed the eastern sky and was making all details clear.
He pointed with a sweeping gesture, as though calling Adam's attention to the
extent of the view.  Having done so, he covered the ground more slowly, as
though inviting attention to detail.  Adam was a willing and attentive pupil,
and followed his motions exactly, missing--or trying to miss--nothing.
     "I have brought you here, Adam, because it seems to me that this is the
spot on which to begin our investigations.  You have now in front of you almost
the whole of the ancient kingdom of Mercia.  In fact, we see the whole of it
except that furthest part, which is covered by the Welsh Marches and those parts
which are hidden from where we stand by the high ground of the immediate west.
We can see--theoretically--the whole of the eastern bound of the kingdom, which
ran south from the Humber to the Wash.  I want you to bear in mind the trend of
the ground, for some time, sooner or later, we shall do well to have it in our
mind's eye when we are considering the ancient traditions and superstitions, and
are trying to find the RATIONALE of them.  Each legend, each superstition which
we receive, will help in the understanding and possible elucidation of the
others.  And as all such have a local basis, we can come closer to the truth--or
the probability--by knowing the local conditions as we go along.  It will help
us to bring to our aid such geological truth as we may have between us.  For
instance, the building materials used in various ages can afford their own
lessons to understanding eyes.  The very heights and shapes and materials of
these hills-- nay, even of the wide plain that lies between us and the sea--have
in themselves the materials of enlightening books."
     "For instance, sir?" said Adam, venturing a question.
     "Well, look at those hills which surround the main one where the site for
the Castle was wisely chosen--on the highest ground.  Take the others.  There is
something ostensible in each of them, and in all probability something unseen
and unproved, but to be imagined, also."
     "For instance?" continued Adam.
     "Let us take them SERIATIM.  That to the east, where the trees are, lower
down--that was once the location of a Roman temple, possibly founded on a
pre-existing Druidical one.  Its name implies the former, and the grove of
ancient oaks suggests the latter."
     "Please explain."
     "The old name translated means 'Diana's Grove.'  Then the next one higher
than it, but just beyond it, is called 'MERCY'--in all probability a corruption
or familiarisation of the word MERCIA, with a Roman pun included.  We learn from
early manuscripts that the place was called VILULA MISERICORDIAE.  It was
originally a nunnery, founded by Queen Bertha, but done away with by King Penda,
the reactionary to Paganism after St. Augustine.  Then comes your uncle's
place--Lesser Hill.  Though it is so close to the Castle, it is not connected
with it.  It is a freehold, and, so far as we know, of equal age.  It has always
belonged to your family."
     "Then there only remains the Castle!"
     "That is all; but its history contains the histories of all the others--in
fact, the whole history of early England."  Sir Nathaniel, seeing the expectant
look on Adam's face, went on:
     "The history of the Castle has no beginning so far as we know.  The
furthest records or surmises or inferences simply accept it as existing.  Some
of these--guesses, let us call them--seem to show that there was some sort of
structure there when the Romans came, therefore it must have been a place of
importance in Druid times--if indeed that was the beginning.  Naturally the
Romans accepted it, as they did everything of the kind that was, or might be,
useful.  The change is shown or inferred in the name Castra.  It was the highest
protected ground, and so naturally became the most important of their camps.  A
study of the map will show you that it must have been a most important centre.
It both protected the advances already made to the north, and helped to dominate
the sea coast.  It sheltered the western marches, beyond which lay savage
Wales--and danger.  It provided a means of getting to the Severn, round which
lay the great Roman roads then coming into existence, and made possible the
great waterway to the heart of England--through the Severn and its tributaries.
It brought the east and the west together by the swiftest and easiest ways known
to those times. And, finally, it provided means of descent on London and all the
expanse of country watered by the Thames.
     "With such a centre, already known and organised, we can easily see that
each fresh wave of invasion--the Angles, the Saxons, the Danes, and the
Normans--found it a desirable possession and so ensured its upholding.  In the
earlier centuries it was merely a vantage ground. But when the victorious Romans
brought with them the heavy solid fortifications impregnable to the weapons of
the time, its commanding position alone ensured its adequate building and
equipment.  Then it was that the fortified camp of the Caesars developed into
the castle of the king.  As we are as yet ignorant of the names of the first
kings of Mercia, no historian has been able to guess which of them made it his
ultimate defence; and I suppose we shall never know now.  In process of time, as
the arts of war developed, it increased in size and strength, and although
recorded details are lacking, the history is written not merely in the stone of
its building, but is inferred in the changes of structure.  Then the sweeping
changes which followed the Norman Conquest wiped out all lesser records than its
own.  To-day we must accept it as one of the earliest castles of the Conquest,
probably not later than the time of Henry I.  Roman and Norman were both wise in
their retention of places of approved strength or utility.  So it was that these
surrounding heights, already established and to a certain extent proved, were
retained.  Indeed, such characteristics as already pertained to them were
preserved, and to-day afford to us lessons regarding things which have
themselves long since passed away.
     "So much for the fortified heights; but the hollows too have their own
story.  But how the time passes!  We must hurry home, or your uncle will wonder
what has become of us."
     He started with long steps towards Lesser Hill, and Adam was soon furtively
running in order to keep up with him.

     CHAPTER IV--THE LADY ARABELLA MARCH

     "Now, there is no hurry, but so soon as you are both ready we shall start,"
Mr. Salton said when breakfast had begun.  "I want to take you first to see a
remarkable relic of Mercia, and then we'll go to Liverpool through what is
called 'The Great Vale of Cheshire.'  You may be disappointed, but take care not
to prepare your mind"--this to Adam--"for anything stupendous or heroic.  You
would not think the place a vale at all, unless you were told so beforehand, and
had confidence in the veracity of the teller.  We should get to the Landing
Stage in time to meet the WEST AFRICAN, and catch Mr. Caswall as he comes
ashore.  We want to do him honour--and, besides, it will be more pleasant to
have the introductions over before we go to his FETE at the Castle."
     The carriage was ready, the same as had been used the previous day, but
there were different horses--magnificent animals, and keen for work.  Breakfast
was soon over, and they shortly took their places. The postillions had their
orders, and were quickly on their way at an exhilarating pace.
     Presently, in obedience to Mr. Salton's signal, the carriage drew up
opposite a great heap of stones by the wayside.
     "Here, Adam," he said, "is something that you of all men should not pass by
unnoticed.  That heap of stones brings us at once to the dawn of the Anglian
kingdom.  It was begun more than a thousand years ago--in the latter part of the
seventh century--in memory of a murder.  Wulfere, King of Mercia, nephew of
Penda, here murdered his two sons for embracing Christianity.  As was the custom
of the time, each passer-by added a stone to the memorial heap.  Penda
represented heathen reaction after St. Augustine's mission.  Sir Nathaniel can
tell you as much as you want about this, and put you, if you wish, on the track
of such accurate knowledge as there is."
     Whilst they were looking at the heap of stones, they noticed that another
carriage had drawn up beside them, and the passenger--there was only one--was
regarding them curiously.  The carriage was an old heavy travelling one, with
arms blazoned on it gorgeously.  The men took off their hats, as the occupant, a
lady, addressed them.
     "How do you do, Sir Nathaniel?  How do you do, Mr. Salton?  I hope you have
not met with any accident.  Look at me!"
     As she spoke she pointed to where one of the heavy springs was broken
across, the broken metal showing bright.  Adam spoke up at once:
     "Oh, that can soon be put right."  "Soon?  There is no one near who can
mend a break like that."
     "I can."
     "You!"  She looked incredulously at the dapper young gentleman who spoke.
"You--why, it's a workman's job."
     "All right, I am a workman--though that is not the only sort of work I do.
I am an Australian, and, as we have to move about fast, we are all trained to
farriery and such mechanics as come into travel-- I am quite at your service."
     "I hardly know how to thank you for your kindness, of which I gladly avail
myself.  I don't know what else I can do, as I wish to meet Mr. Caswall of
Castra Regis, who arrives home from Africa to-day. It is a notable home-coming;
all the countryside want to do him honour."  She looked at the old men and
quickly made up her mind as to the identity of the stranger.  "You must be Mr.
Adam Salton of Lesser Hill.  I am Lady Arabella March of Diana's Grove."  As she
spoke she turned slightly to Mr. Salton, who took the hint and made a formal
introduction.
     So soon as this was done, Adam took some tools from his uncle's carriage,
and at once began work on the broken spring.  He was an expert workman, and the
breach was soon made good.  Adam was gathering the tools which he had been
using--which, after the manner of all workmen, had been scattered about--when he
noticed that several black snakes had crawled out from the heap of stones and
were gathering round him.  This naturally occupied his mind, and he was not
thinking of anything else when he noticed Lady Arabella, who had opened the door
of the carriage, slip from it with a quick gliding motion.  She was already
among the snakes when he called out to warn her.  But there seemed to be no need
of warning.  The snakes had turned and were wriggling back to the mound as
quickly as they could.  He laughed to himself behind his teeth as he whispered,
"No need to fear there.  They seem much more afraid of her than she of them."
All the same he began to beat on the ground with a stick which was lying close
to him, with the instinct of one used to such vermin.  In an instant he was
alone beside the mound with Lady Arabella, who appeared quite unconcerned at the
incident.  Then he took a long look at her, and her dress alone was sufficient
to attract attention.  She was clad in some kind of soft white stuff, which
clung close to her form, showing to the full every movement of her sinuous
figure.  She wore a close-fitting cap of some fine fur of dazzling white.
Coiled round her white throat was a large necklace of emeralds, whose profusion
of colour dazzled when the sun shone on them.  Her voice was peculiar, very low
and sweet, and so soft that the dominant note was of sibilation.  Her hands,
too, were peculiar--long, flexible, white, with a strange movement as of waving
gently to and fro.
     She appeared quite at ease, and, after thanking Adam, said that if any of
his uncle's party were going to Liverpool she would be most happy to join
forces.
     "Whilst you are staying here, Mr. Salton, you must look on the grounds of
Diana's Grove as your own, so that you may come and go just as you do in Lesser
Hill.  There are some fine views, and not a few natural curiosities which are
sure to interest you, if you are a student of natural history--specially of an
earlier kind, when the world was younger."
     The heartiness with which she spoke, and the warmth of her words-- not of
her manner, which was cold and distant--made him suspicious. In the meantime
both his uncle and Sir Nathaniel had thanked her for the invitation--of which,
however, they said they were unable to avail themselves.  Adam had a suspicion
that, though she answered regretfully, she was in reality relieved.  When he had
got into the carriage with the two old men, and they had driven off, he was not
surprised when Sir Nathaniel spoke.
     "I could not but feel that she was glad to be rid of us.  She can play her
game better alone!"
     "What is her game?" asked Adam unthinkingly.
     "All the county knows it, my boy.  Caswall is a very rich man.  Her husband
was rich when she married him--or seemed to be.  When he committed suicide, it
was found that he had nothing left, and the estate was mortgaged up to the hilt.
 Her only hope is in a rich marriage.  I suppose I need not draw any conclusion;
you can do that as well as I can."
     Adam remained silent nearly all the time they were travelling through the
alleged Vale of Cheshire.  He thought much during that journey and came to
several conclusions, though his lips were unmoved.  One of these conclusions was
that he would be very careful about paying any attention to Lady Arabella.  He
was himself a rich man, how rich not even his uncle had the least idea, and
would have been surprised had he known.
     The remainder of the journey was uneventful, and upon arrival at Liverpool
they went aboard the WEST AFRICAN, which had just come to the landing-stage.
There his uncle introduced himself to Mr. Caswall, and followed this up by
introducing Sir Nathaniel and then Adam.  The new-comer received them
graciously, and said what a pleasure it was to be coming home after so long an
absence of his family from their old seat.  Adam was pleased at the warmth of
the reception; but he could not avoid a feeling of repugnance at the man's face.
 He was trying hard to overcome this when a diversion was caused by the arrival
of Lady Arabella.  The diversion was welcome to all; the two Saltons and Sir
Nathaniel were shocked at Caswall's face--so hard, so ruthless, so selfish, so
dominant.  "God help any," was the common thought, "who is under the domination
of such a man!"
     Presently his African servant approached him, and at once their thoughts
changed to a larger toleration.  Caswall looked indeed a savage--but a cultured
savage.  In him were traces of the softening civilisation of ages--of some of
the higher instincts and education of man, no matter how rudimentary these might
be.  But the face of Oolanga, as his master called him, was unreformed,
unsoftened savage, and inherent in it were all the hideous possibilities of a
lost, devil-ridden child of the forest and the swamp--the lowest of all created
things that could be regarded as in some form ostensibly human.  Lady Arabella
and Oolanga arrived almost simultaneously, and Adam was surprised to notice what
effect their appearance had on each other.  The woman seemed as if she would
not--could not-- condescend to exhibit any concern or interest in such a
creature. On the other hand, the negro's bearing was such as in itself to
justify her pride.  He treated her not merely as a slave treats his master, but
as a worshipper would treat a deity.  He knelt before her with his hands
out-stretched and his forehead in the dust.  So long as she remained he did not
move; it was only when she went over to Caswall that he relaxed his attitude of
devotion and stood by respectfully.
     Adam spoke to his own man, Davenport, who was standing by, having arrived
with the bailiff of Lesser Hill, who had followed Mr. Salton in a pony trap.  As
he spoke, he pointed to an attentive ship's steward, and presently the two men
were conversing.
     "I think we ought to be moving," Mr. Salton said to Adam.  "I have some
things to do in Liverpool, and I am sure that both Mr. Caswall and Lady Arabella
would like to get under weigh for Castra Regis."
     "I too, sir, would like to do something," replied Adam.  "I want to find
out where Ross, the animal merchant, lives--I want to take a small animal home
with me, if you don't mind.  He is only a little thing, and will be no trouble."
     "Of course not, my boy.  What kind of animal is it that you want?"
     "A mongoose."
     "A mongoose!  What on earth do you want it for?"
     "To kill snakes."
     "Good!"  The old man remembered the mound of stones.  No explanation was
needed.
     When Ross heard what was wanted, he asked:
     "Do you want something special, or will an ordinary mongoose do?"
     "Well, of course I want a good one.  But I see no need for anything
special.  It is for ordinary use."
     "I can let you have a choice of ordinary ones.  I only asked, because I
have in stock a very special one which I got lately from Nepaul.  He has a
record of his own.  He killed a king cobra that had been seen in the Rajah's
garden.  But I don't suppose we have any snakes of the kind in this cold
climate--I daresay an ordinary one will do."
     When Adam got back to the carriage, carefully carrying the box with the
mongoose, Sir Nathaniel said:  "Hullo! what have you got there?"
     "A mongoose."
     "What for?"
     "To kill snakes!"
     Sir Nathaniel laughed.
     "I heard Lady Arabella's invitation to you to come to Diana's Grove."
     "Well, what on earth has that got to do with it?"
     "Nothing directly that I know of.  But we shall see."  Adam waited, and the
old man went on:  "Have you by any chance heard the other name which was given
long ago to that place."
     "No, sir."
     "It was called-- Look here, this subject wants a lot of talking over.
Suppose we wait till we are alone and have lots of time before us."
     "All right, sir."  Adam was filled with curiosity, but he thought it better
not to hurry matters.  All would come in good time.  Then the three men returned
home, leaving Mr. Caswall to spend the night in Liverpool.
     The following day the Lesser Hill party set out for Castra Regis, and for
the time Adam thought no more of Diana's Grove or of what mysteries it had
contained--or might still contain.
     The guests were crowding in, and special places were marked for important
people.  Adam, seeing so many persons of varied degree, looked round for Lady
Arabella, but could not locate her.  It was only when he saw the old-fashioned
travelling carriage approach and heard the sound of cheering which went with it,
that he realised that Edgar Caswall had arrived.  Then, on looking more closely,
he saw that Lady Arabella, dressed as he had seen her last, was seated beside
him.  When the carriage drew up at the great flight of steps, the host jumped
down and gave her his hand.
     It was evident to all that she was the chief guest at the festivities.  It
was not long before the seats on the dais were filled, while the tenants and
guests of lesser importance had occupied all the coigns of vantage not reserved.
 The order of the day had been carefully arranged by a committee.  There were
some speeches, happily neither many nor long; and then festivities were
suspended till the time for feasting arrived.  In the interval Caswall walked
among his guests, speaking to all in a friendly manner and expressing a general
welcome.  The other guests came down from the dais and followed his example, so
there was unceremonious meeting and greeting between gentle and simple.
     Adam Salton naturally followed with his eyes all that went on within their
scope, taking note of all who seemed to afford any interest. He was young and a
man and a stranger from a far distance; so on all these accounts he naturally
took stock rather of the women than of the men, and of these, those who were
young and attractive.  There were lots of pretty girls among the crowd, and
Adam, who was a handsome young man and well set up, got his full share of
admiring glances.  These did not concern him much, and he remained unmoved until
there came along a group of three, by their dress and bearing, of the farmer
class.  One was a sturdy old man; the other two were good-looking girls, one of
a little over twenty, the other not quite so old.  So soon as Adam's eyes met
those of the younger girl, who stood nearest to him, some sort of electricity
flashed--that divine spark which begins by recognition, and ends in obedience.
Men call it "Love."
     Both his companions noticed how much Adam was taken by the pretty girl, and
spoke of her to him in a way which made his heart warm to them.
     "Did you notice that party that passed?  The old man is Michael Watford,
one of the tenants of Mr. Caswall.  He occupies Mercy Farm, which Sir Nathaniel
pointed out to you to-day.  The girls are his grand-daughters, the elder, Lilla,
being the only child of his elder son, who died when she was less than a year
old.  His wife died on the same day.  She is a good girl--as good as she is
pretty.  The other is her first cousin, the daughter of Watford's second son.
He went for a soldier when he was just over twenty, and was drafted abroad.  He
was not a good correspondent, though he was a good enough son.  A few letters
came, and then his father heard from the colonel of his regiment that he had
been killed by dacoits in Burmah.  He heard from the same source that his boy
had been married to a Burmese, and that there was a daughter only a year old.
Watford had the child brought home, and she grew up beside Lilla. The only thing
that they heard of her birth was that her name was Mimi.  The two children
adored each other, and do to this day. Strange how different they are!  Lilla
all fair, like the old Saxon stock from which she is sprung; Mimi showing a
trace of her mother's race.  Lilla is as gentle as a dove, but Mimi's black eyes
can glow whenever she is upset.  The only thing that upsets her is when anything
happens to injure or threaten or annoy Lilla.  Then her eyes glow as do the eyes
of a bird when her young are menaced."

     CHAPTER V--THE WHITE WORM

     Mr. Salton introduced Adam to Mr. Watford and his grand-daughters, and they
all moved on together.  Of course neighbours in the position of the Watfords
knew all about Adam Salton, his relationship, circumstances, and prospects.  So
it would have been strange indeed if both girls did not dream of possibilities
of the future.  In agricultural England, eligible men of any class are rare.
This particular man was specially eligible, for he did not belong to a class in
which barriers of caste were strong.  So when it began to be noticed that he
walked beside Mimi Watford and seemed to desire her society, all their friends
endeavoured to give the promising affair a helping hand.  When the gongs sounded
for the banquet, he went with her into the tent where her grandfather had seats.
 Mr. Salton and Sir Nathaniel noticed that the young man did not come to claim
his appointed place at the dais table; but they understood and made no remark,
or indeed did not seem to notice his absence.
     Lady Arabella sat as before at Edgar Caswall's right hand.  She was
certainly a striking and unusual woman, and to all it seemed fitting from her
rank and personal qualities that she should be the chosen partner of the heir on
his first appearance.  Of course nothing was said openly by those of her own
class who were present; but words were not necessary when so much could be
expressed by nods and smiles.  It seemed to be an accepted thing that at last
there was to be a mistress of Castra Regis, and that she was present amongst
them.  There were not lacking some who, whilst admitting all her charm and
beauty, placed her in the second rank, Lilla Watford being marked as first.
There was sufficient divergence of type, as well as of individual beauty, to
allow of fair comment; Lady Arabella represented the aristocratic type, and
Lilla that of the commonalty.
     When the dusk began to thicken, Mr. Salton and Sir Nathaniel walked
home--the trap had been sent away early in the day--leaving Adam to follow in
his own time.  He came in earlier than was expected, and seemed upset about
something.  Neither of the elders made any comment.  They all lit cigarettes,
and, as dinner-time was close at hand, went to their rooms to get ready.
     Adam had evidently been thinking in the interval.  He joined the others in
the drawing-room, looking ruffled and impatient--a condition of things seen for
the first time.  The others, with the patience--or the experience--of age,
trusted to time to unfold and explain things.  They had not long to wait.  After
sitting down and standing up several times, Adam suddenly burst out.
     "That fellow seems to think he owns the earth.  Can't he let people alone!
He seems to think that he has only to throw his handkerchief to any woman, and
be her master."
     This outburst was in itself enlightening.  Only thwarted affection in some
guise could produce this feeling in an amiable young man. Sir Nathaniel, as an
old diplomatist, had a way of understanding, as if by foreknowledge, the true
inwardness of things, and asked suddenly, but in a matter-of-fact, indifferent
voice:
     "Was he after Lilla?"
     "Yes, and the fellow didn't lose any time either.  Almost as soon as they
met, he began to butter her up, and tell her how beautiful she was.  Why, before
he left her side, he had asked himself to tea to- morrow at Mercy Farm.  Stupid
ass!  He might see that the girl isn't his sort!  I never saw anything like it.
It was just like a hawk and a pigeon."
     As he spoke, Sir Nathaniel turned and looked at Mr. Salton--a keen look
which implied a full understanding.
     "Tell us all about it, Adam.  There are still a few minutes before dinner,
and we shall all have better appetites when we have come to some conclusion on
this matter."
     "There is nothing to tell, sir; that is the worst of it.  I am bound to say
that there was not a word said that a human being could object to.  He was very
civil, and all that was proper--just what a landlord might be to a tenant's
daughter. . . Yet--yet--well, I don't know how it was, but it made my blood
boil."
     "How did the hawk and the pigeon come in?"  Sir Nathaniel's voice was soft
and soothing, nothing of contradiction or overdone curiosity in it--a tone
eminently suited to win confidence.
     "I can hardly explain.  I can only say that he looked like a hawk and she
like a dove--and, now that I think of it, that is what they each did look like;
and do look like in their normal condition."
     "That is so!" came the soft voice of Sir Nathaniel.
     Adam went on:
     "Perhaps that early Roman look of his set me off.  But I wanted to protect
her; she seemed in danger."
     "She seems in danger, in a way, from all you young men.  I couldn't help
noticing the way that even you looked--as if you wished to absorb her!"
     "I hope both you young men will keep your heads cool," put in Mr. Salton.
"You know, Adam, it won't do to have any quarrel between you, especially so soon
after his home-coming and your arrival here. We must think of the feelings and
happiness of our neighbours; mustn't we?"
     "I hope so, sir.  I assure you that, whatever may happen, or even threaten,
I shall obey your wishes in this as in all things."
     "Hush!" whispered Sir Nathaniel, who heard the servants in the passage
bringing dinner.
     After dinner, over the walnuts and the wine, Sir Nathaniel returned to the
subject of the local legends.
     "It will perhaps be a less dangerous topic for us to discuss than more
recent ones."
     "All right, sir," said Adam heartily.  "I think you may depend on me now
with regard to any topic.  I can even discuss Mr. Caswall. Indeed, I may meet
him to-morrow.  He is going, as I said, to call at Mercy Farm at three
o'clock--but I have an appointment at two."
     "I notice," said Mr. Salton, "that you do not lose any time."
     The two old men once more looked at each other steadily.  Then, lest the
mood of his listener should change with delay, Sir Nathaniel began at once:
     "I don't propose to tell you all the legends of Mercia, or even to make a
selection of them.  It will be better, I think, for our purpose if we consider a
few facts--recorded or unrecorded--about this neighbourhood.  I think we might
begin with Diana's Grove.  It has roots in the different epochs of our history,
and each has its special crop of legend.  The Druid and the Roman are too far
off for matters of detail; but it seems to me the Saxon and the Angles are near
enough to yield material for legendary lore.  We find that this particular place
had another name besides Diana's Grove.  This was manifestly of Roman origin, or
of Grecian accepted as Roman.  The other is more pregnant of adventure and
romance than the Roman name. In Mercian tongue it was 'The Lair of the White
Worm.'  This needs a word of explanation at the beginning.
     "In the dawn of the language, the word 'worm' had a somewhat different
meaning from that in use to-day.  It was an adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon
'wyrm,' meaning a dragon or snake; or from the Gothic 'waurms,' a serpent; or
the Icelandic 'ormur,' or the German 'wurm.'  We gather that it conveyed
originally an idea of size and power, not as now in the diminutive of both these
meanings.  Here legendary history helps us.  We have the well-known legend of
the 'Worm Well' of Lambton Castle, and that of the 'Laidly Worm of Spindleston
Heugh' near Bamborough.  In both these legends the 'worm' was a monster of vast
size and power--a veritable dragon or serpent, such as legend attributes to vast
fens or quags where there was illimitable room for expansion.  A glance at a
geological map will show that whatever truth there may have been of the
actuality of such monsters in the early geologic periods, at least there was
plenty of possibility.  In England there were originally vast plains where the
plentiful supply of water could gather.  The streams were deep and slow, and
there were holes of abysmal depth, where any kind and size of antediluvian
monster could find a habitat.  In places, which now we can see from our windows,
were mud-holes a hundred or more feet deep.  Who can tell us when the age of the
monsters which flourished in slime came to an end?  There must have been places
and conditions which made for greater longevity, greater size, greater strength
than was usual.  Such over-lappings may have come down even to our earlier
centuries.  Nay, are there not now creatures of a vastness of bulk regarded by
the generality of men as impossible? Even in our own day there are seen the
traces of animals, if not the animals themselves, of stupendous size--veritable
survivals from earlier ages, preserved by some special qualities in their
habitats. I remember meeting a distinguished man in India, who had the
reputation of being a great shikaree, who told me that the greatest temptation
he had ever had in his life was to shoot a giant snake which he had come across
in the Terai of Upper India.  He was on a tiger-shooting expedition, and as his
elephant was crossing a nullah, it squealed.  He looked down from his howdah and
saw that the elephant had stepped across the body of a snake which was dragging
itself through the jungle.  'So far as I could see,' he said, 'it must have been
eighty or one hundred feet in length. Fully forty or fifty feet was on each side
of the track, and though the weight which it dragged had thinned it, it was as
thick round as a man's body.  I suppose you know that when you are after tiger,
it is a point of honour not to shoot at anything else, as life may depend on it.
 I could easily have spined this monster, but I felt that I must not--so, with
regret, I had to let it go.'
     "Just imagine such a monster anywhere in this country, and at once we could
get a sort of idea of the 'worms,' which possibly did frequent the great
morasses which spread round the mouths of many of the great European rivers."
     "I haven't the least doubt, sir, that there may have been such monsters as
you have spoken of still existing at a much later period than is generally
accepted," replied Adam.  "Also, if there were such things, that this was the
very place for them.  I have tried to think over the matter since you pointed
out the configuration of the ground.  But it seems to me that there is a hiatus
somewhere.  Are there not mechanical difficulties?"
     "In what way?"  "Well, our antique monster must have been mighty heavy, and
the distances he had to travel were long and the ways difficult.  From where we
are now sitting down to the level of the mud-holes is a distance of several
hundred feet--I am leaving out of consideration altogether any lateral distance.
 Is it possible that there was a way by which a monster could travel up and
down, and yet no chance recorder have ever seen him?  Of course we have the
legends; but is not some more exact evidence necessary in a scientific
investigation?"
     "My dear Adam, all you say is perfectly right, and, were we starting on
such an investigation, we could not do better than follow your reasoning.  But,
my dear boy, you must remember that all this took place thousands of years ago.
You must remember, too, that all records of the kind that would help us are
lacking.  Also, that the places to be considered were desert, so far as human
habitation or population are considered.  In the vast desolation of such a place
as complied with the necessary conditions, there must have been such profusion
of natural growth as would bar the progress of men formed as we are.  The lair
of such a monster would not have been disturbed for hundreds--or thousands--of
years.  Moreover, these creatures must have occupied places quite inaccessible
to man.  A snake who could make himself comfortable in a quagmire, a hundred
feet deep, would be protected on the outskirts by such stupendous morasses as
now no longer exist, or which, if they exist anywhere at all, can be on very few
places on the earth's surface.  Far be it from me to say that in more elemental
times such things could not have been.  The condition belongs to the geologic
age--the great birth and growth of the world, when natural forces ran riot, when
the struggle for existence was so savage that no vitality which was not founded
in a gigantic form could have even a possibility of survival.  That such a time
existed, we have evidences in geology, but there only; we can never expect
proofs such as this age demands.  We can only imagine or surmise such things--or
such conditions and such forces as overcame them."

     CHAPTER VI--HAWK AND PIGEON

     At breakfast-time next morning Sir Nathaniel and Mr. Salton were seated
when Adam came hurriedly into the room.
     "Any news?" asked his uncle mechanically.
     "Four."
     "Four what?" asked Sir Nathaniel.
     "Snakes," said Adam, helping himself to a grilled kidney.
     "Four snakes.  I don't understand."
     "Mongoose," said Adam, and then added explanatorily:  "I was out with the
mongoose just after three."
     "Four snakes in one morning!  Why, I didn't know there were so many on the
Brow"--the local name for the western cliff.  "I hope that wasn't the
consequence of our talk of last night?"
     "It was, sir.  But not directly."
     "But, God bless my soul, you didn't expect to get a snake like the Lambton
worm, did you?  Why, a mongoose, to tackle a monster like that--if there were
one--would have to be bigger than a haystack."
     "These were ordinary snakes, about as big as a walking-stick."
     "Well, it's pleasant to be rid of them, big or little.  That is a good
mongoose, I am sure; he'll clear out all such vermin round here," said Mr.
Salton.
     Adam went quietly on with his breakfast.  Killing a few snakes in a morning
was no new experience to him.  He left the room the moment breakfast was
finished and went to the study that his uncle had arranged for him.  Both Sir
Nathaniel and Mr. Salton took it that he wanted to be by himself, so as to avoid
any questioning or talk of the visit that he was to make that afternoon.  They
saw nothing further of him till about half-an-hour before dinner-time.  Then he
came quietly into the smoking-room, where Mr. Salton and Sir Nathaniel were
sitting together, ready dressed.
     "I suppose there is no use waiting.  We had better get it over at once,"
remarked Adam.
     His uncle, thinking to make things easier for him, said:  "Get what over?"
     There was a sign of shyness about him at this.  He stammered a little at
first, but his voice became more even as he went on.
     "My visit to Mercy Farm."
     Mr. Salton waited eagerly.  The old diplomatist simply smiled.
     "I suppose you both know that I was much interested yesterday in the
Watfords?"  There was no denial or fending off the question.  Both the old men
smiled acquiescence.  Adam went on:  "I meant you to see it--both of you.  You,
uncle, because you are my uncle and the nearest of my own kin, and, moreover,
you couldn't have been more kind to me or made me more welcome if you had been
my own father." Mr. Salton said nothing.  He simply held out his hand, and the
other took it and held it for a few seconds.  "And you, sir, because you have
shown me something of the same affection which in my wildest dreams of home I
had no right to expect."  He stopped for an instant, much moved.
     Sir Nathaniel answered softly, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.
     "You are right, my boy; quite right.  That is the proper way to look at it.
 And I may tell you that we old men, who have no children of our own, feel our
hearts growing warm when we hear words like those."
     Then Adam hurried on, speaking with a rush, as if he wanted to come to the
crucial point.
     "Mr. Watford had not come in, but Lilla and Mimi were at home, and they
made me feel very welcome.  They have all a great regard for my uncle.  I am
glad of that any way, for I like them all--much.  We were having tea, when Mr.
Caswall came to the door, attended by the negro.  Lilla opened the door herself.
 The window of the living- room at the farm is a large one, and from within you
cannot help seeing anyone coming.  Mr. Caswall said he had ventured to call, as
he wished to make the acquaintance of all his tenants, in a less formal way, and
more individually, than had been possible to him on the previous day.  The girls
made him welcome--they are very sweet girls those, sir; someone will be very
happy some day there--with either of them."
     "And that man may be you, Adam," said Mr. Salton heartily.
     A sad look came over the young man's eyes, and the fire his uncle had seen
there died out.  Likewise the timbre left his voice, making it sound lonely.
     "Such might crown my life.  But that happiness, I fear, is not for me--or
not without pain and loss and woe."
     "Well, it's early days yet!" cried Sir Nathaniel heartily.
     The young man turned on him his eyes, which had now grown excessively sad.
     "Yesterday--a few hours ago--that remark would have given me new hope--new
courage; but since then I have learned too much."
     The old man, skilled in the human heart, did not attempt to argue in such a
matter.
     "Too early to give in, my boy."
     "I am not of a giving-in kind," replied the young man earnestly. "But,
after all, it is wise to realise a truth.  And when a man, though he is young,
feels as I do--as I have felt ever since yesterday, when I first saw Mimi's
eyes--his heart jumps.  He does not need to learn things.  He knows."
     There was silence in the room, during which the twilight stole on
imperceptibly.  It was Adam who again broke the silence.
     "Do you know, uncle, if we have any second sight in our family?"
     "No, not that I ever heard about.  Why?"
     "Because," he answered slowly, "I have a conviction which seems to answer
all the conditions of second sight."
     "And then?" asked the old man, much perturbed.
     "And then the usual inevitable.  What in the Hebrides and other places,
where the Sight is a cult--a belief--is called 'the doom'-- the court from which
there is no appeal.  I have often heard of second sight--we have many western
Scots in Australia; but I have realised more of its true inwardness in an
instant of this afternoon than I did in the whole of my life previously--a
granite wall stretching up to the very heavens, so high and so dark that the eye
of God Himself cannot see beyond.  Well, if the Doom must come, it must.  That
is all."
     The voice of Sir Nathaniel broke in, smooth and sweet and grave.
     "Can there not be a fight for it?  There can for most things."
     "For most things, yes, but for the Doom, no.  What a man can do I shall do.
 There will be--must be--a fight.  When and where and how I know not, but a
fight there will be.  But, after all, what is a man in such a case?"
     "Adam, there are three of us."  Salton looked at his old friend as he
spoke, and that old friend's eyes blazed.
     "Ay, three of us," he said, and his voice rang.
     There was again a pause, and Sir Nathaniel endeavoured to get back to less
emotional and more neutral ground.
     "Tell us of the rest of the meeting.  Remember we are all pledged to this.
It is a fight E L'OUTRANCE, and we can afford to throw away or forgo no chance."
     "We shall throw away or lose nothing that we can help.  We fight to win,
and the stake is a life--perhaps more than one--we shall see." Then he went on
in a conversational tone, such as he had used when he spoke of the coming to the
farm of Edgar Caswall:  "When Mr. Caswall came in, the negro went a short
distance away and there remained.  It gave me the idea that he expected to be
called, and intended to remain in sight, or within hail.  Then Mimi got another
cup and made fresh tea, and we all went on together."
     "Was there anything uncommon--were you all quite friendly?" asked Sir
Nathaniel quietly.
     "Quite friendly.  There was nothing that I could notice out of the
common--except," he went on, with a slight hardening of the voice, "except that
he kept his eyes fixed on Lilla, in a way which was quite intolerable to any man
who might hold her dear."
     "Now, in what way did he look?" asked Sir Nathaniel.
     "There was nothing in itself offensive; but no one could help noticing it."
     "You did.  Miss Watford herself, who was the victim, and Mr. Caswall, who
was the offender, are out of range as witnesses.  Was there anyone else who
noticed?"
     "Mimi did.  Her face flamed with anger as she saw the look."
     "What kind of look was it?  Over-ardent or too admiring, or what? Was it
the look of a lover, or one who fain would be?  You understand?"
     "Yes, sir, I quite understand.  Anything of that sort I should of course
notice.  It would be part of my preparation for keeping my self-control--to
which I am pledged."
     "If it were not amatory, was it threatening?  Where was the offence?"
     Adam smiled kindly at the old man.
     "It was not amatory.  Even if it was, such was to be expected.  I should be
the last man in the world to object, since I am myself an offender in that
respect.  Moreover, not only have I been taught to fight fair, but by nature I
believe I am just.  I would be as tolerant of and as liberal to a rival as I
should expect him to be to me.  No, the look I mean was nothing of that kind.
And so long as it did not lack proper respect, I should not of my own part
condescend to notice it.  Did you ever study the eyes of a hound?"
     "At rest?"
     "No, when he is following his instincts!  Or, better still," Adam went on,
"the eyes of a bird of prey when he is following his instincts.  Not when he is
swooping, but merely when he is watching his quarry?"
     "No," said Sir Nathaniel, "I don't know that I ever did.  Why, may I ask?"
     "That was the look.  Certainly not amatory or anything of that kind- -yet
it was, it struck me, more dangerous, if not so deadly as an actual
threatening."
     Again there was a silence, which Sir Nathaniel broke as he stood up:
     "I think it would be well if we all thought over this by ourselves. Then we
can renew the subject."

     CHAPTER VII--OOLANGA

     Mr. Salton had an appointment for six o'clock at Liverpool.  When he had
driven off, Sir Nathaniel took Adam by the arm.
     "May I come with you for a while to your study?  I want to speak to you
privately without your uncle knowing about it, or even what the subject is.  You
don't mind, do you?  It is not idle curiosity.  No, no.  It is on the subject to
which we are all committed."
     "Is it necessary to keep my uncle in the dark about it?  He might be
offended."
     "It is not necessary; but it is advisable.  It is for his sake that I
asked.  My friend is an old man, and it might concern him unduly-- even alarm
him.  I promise you there shall be nothing that could cause him anxiety in our
silence, or at which he could take umbrage."
     "Go on, sir!" said Adam simply.
     "You see, your uncle is now an old man.  I know it, for we were boys
together.  He has led an uneventful and somewhat self-contained life, so that
any such condition of things as has now arisen is apt to perplex him from its
very strangeness.  In fact, any new matter is trying to old people.  It has its
own disturbances and its own anxieties, and neither of these things are good for
lives that should be restful.  Your uncle is a strong man, with a very happy and
placid nature.  Given health and ordinary conditions of life, there is no reason
why he should not live to be a hundred.  You and I, therefore, who both love
him, though in different ways, should make it our business to protect him from
all disturbing influences. I am sure you will agree with me that any labour to
this end would be well spent.  All right, my boy!  I see your answer in your
eyes; so we need say no more of that.  And now," here his voice changed, "tell
me all that took place at that interview.  There are strange things in front of
us--how strange we cannot at present even guess. Doubtless some of the difficult
things to understand which lie behind the veil will in time be shown to us to
see and to understand.  In the meantime, all we can do is to work patiently,
fearlessly, and unselfishly, to an end that we think is right.  You had got so
far as where Lilla opened the door to Mr. Caswall and the negro.  You also
observed that Mimi was disturbed in her mind at the way Mr. Caswall looked at
her cousin."
     "Certainly--though 'disturbed' is a poor way of expressing her objection."
     "Can you remember well enough to describe Caswall's eyes, and how Lilla
looked, and what Mimi said and did?  Also Oolanga, Caswall's West African
servant."
     "I'll do what I can, sir.  All the time Mr. Caswall was staring, he kept
his eyes fixed and motionless--but not as if he was in a trance.  His forehead
was wrinkled up, as it is when one is trying to see through or into something.
At the best of times his face has not a gentle expression; but when it was
screwed up like that it was almost diabolical.  It frightened poor Lilla so that
she trembled, and after a bit got so pale that I thought she had fainted.
However, she held up and tried to stare back, but in a feeble kind of way.  Then
Mimi came close and held her hand.  That braced her up, and--still, never
ceasing her return stare--she got colour again and seemed more like herself."
     "Did he stare too?"
     "More than ever.  The weaker Lilla seemed, the stronger he became, just as
if he were feeding on her strength.  All at once she turned round, threw up her
hands, and fell down in a faint.  I could not see what else happened just then,
for Mimi had thrown herself on her knees beside her and hid her from me.  Then
there was something like a black shadow between us, and there was the nigger,
looking more like a malignant devil than ever.  I am not usually a patient man,
and the sight of that ugly devil is enough to make one's blood boil. When he saw
my face, he seemed to realise danger--immediate danger-- and slunk out of the
room as noiselessly as if he had been blown out.  I learned one thing,
however--he is an enemy, if ever a man had one."
     "That still leaves us three to two!" put in Sir Nathaniel.
     "Then Caswall slunk out, much as the nigger had done.  When he had gone,
Lilla recovered at once."
     "Now," said Sir Nathaniel, anxious to restore peace, "have you found out
anything yet regarding the negro?  I am anxious to be posted regarding him.  I
fear there will be, or may be, grave trouble with him."
     "Yes, sir, I've heard a good deal about him--of course it is not official;
but hearsay must guide us at first.  You know my man Davenport--private
secretary, confidential man of business, and general factotum.  He is devoted to
me, and has my full confidence. I asked him to stay on board the WEST AFRICAN
and have a good look round, and find out what he could about Mr. Caswall.
Naturally, he was struck with the aboriginal savage.  He found one of the ship's
stewards, who had been on the regular voyages to South Africa.  He knew Oolanga
and had made a study of him.  He is a man who gets on well with niggers, and
they open their hearts to him.  It seems that this Oolanga is quite a great
person in the nigger world of the African West Coast.  He has the two things
which men of his own colour respect:  he can make them afraid, and he is lavish
with money.  I don't know whose money--but that does not matter.  They are
always ready to trumpet his greatness.  Evil greatness it is-- but neither does
that matter.  Briefly, this is his history.  He was originally a
witch-finder--about as low an occupation as exists amongst aboriginal savages.
Then he got up in the world and became an Obi-man, which gives an opportunity to
wealth VIA blackmail. Finally, he reached the highest honour in hellish service.
 He became a user of Voodoo, which seems to be a service of the utmost baseness
and cruelty.  I was told some of his deeds of cruelty, which are simply
sickening.  They made me long for an opportunity of helping to drive him back to
hell.  You might think to look at him that you could measure in some way the
extent of his vileness; but it would be a vain hope.  Monsters such as he is
belong to an earlier and more rudimentary stage of barbarism.  He is in his way
a clever fellow--for a nigger; but is none the less dangerous or the less
hateful for that.  The men in the ship told me that he was a collector:  some of
them had seen his collections.  Such collections!  All that was potent for evil
in bird or beast, or even in fish.  Beaks that could break and rend and
tear--all the birds represented were of a predatory kind.  Even the fishes are
those which are born to destroy, to wound, to torture.  The collection, I assure
you, was an object lesson in human malignity.  This being has enough evil in his
face to frighten even a strong man.  It is little wonder that the sight of it
put that poor girl into a dead faint!"
     Nothing more could be done at the moment, so they separated.
     Adam was up in the early morning and took a smart walk round the Brow.  As
he was passing Diana's Grove, he looked in on the short avenue of trees, and
noticed the snakes killed on the previous morning by the mongoose.  They all lay
in a row, straight and rigid, as if they had been placed by hands.  Their skins
seemed damp and sticky, and they were covered all over with ants and other
insects. They looked loathsome, so after a glance, he passed on.
     A little later, when his steps took him, naturally enough, past the
entrance to Mercy Farm, he was passed by the negro, moving quickly under the
trees wherever there was shadow.  Laid across one extended arm, looking like
dirty towels across a rail, he had the horrid- looking snakes.  He did not seem
to see Adam.  No one was to be seen at Mercy except a few workmen in the
farmyard, so, after waiting on the chance of seeing Mimi, Adam began to go
slowly home.
     Once more he was passed on the way.  This time it was by Lady Arabella,
walking hurriedly and so furiously angry that she did not recognise him, even to
the extent of acknowledging his bow.
     When Adam got back to Lesser Hill, he went to the coach-house where the box
with the mongoose was kept, and took it with him, intending to finish at the
Mound of Stone what he had begun the previous morning with regard to the
extermination.  He found that the snakes were even more easily attacked than on
the previous day; no less than six were killed in the first half-hour.  As no
more appeared, he took it for granted that the morning's work was over, and went
towards home.  The mongoose had by this time become accustomed to him, and was
willing to let himself be handled freely.  Adam lifted him up and put him on his
shoulder and walked on.  Presently he saw a lady advancing towards him, and
recognised Lady Arabella.
     Hitherto the mongoose had been quiet, like a playful affectionate kitten;
but when the two got close, Adam was horrified to see the mongoose, in a state
of the wildest fury, with every hair standing on end, jump from his shoulder and
run towards Lady Arabella.  It looked so furious and so intent on attack that he
called a warning.
     "Look out--look out!  The animal is furious and means to attack."
     Lady Arabella looked more than ever disdainful and was passing on; the
mongoose jumped at her in a furious attack.  Adam rushed forward with his stick,
the only weapon he had.  But just as he got within striking distance, the lady
drew out a revolver and shot the animal, breaking his backbone.  Not satisfied
with this, she poured shot after shot into him till the magazine was exhausted.
There was no coolness or hauteur about her now; she seemed more furious even
than the animal, her face transformed with hate, and as determined to kill as he
had appeared to be.  Adam, not knowing exactly what to do, lifted his hat in
apology and hurried on to Lesser Hill.

     CHAPTER VIII--SURVIVALS

     At breakfast Sir Nathaniel noticed that Adam was put out about something,
but he said nothing.  The lesson of silence is better remembered in age than in
youth.  When they were both in the study, where Sir Nathaniel followed him, Adam
at once began to tell his companion of what had happened.  Sir Nathaniel looked
graver and graver as the narration proceeded, and when Adam had stopped he
remained silent for several minutes, before speaking.
     "This is very grave.  I have not formed any opinion yet; but it seems to me
at first impression that this is worse than anything I had expected."
     "Why, sir?" said Adam.  "Is the killing of a mongoose--no matter by
whom--so serious a thing as all that?"
     His companion smoked on quietly for quite another few minutes before he
spoke.
     "When I have properly thought it over I may moderate my opinion, but in the
meantime it seems to me that there is something dreadful behind all
this--something that may affect all our lives--that may mean the issue of life
or death to any of us."
     Adam sat up quickly.
     "Do tell me, sir, what is in your mind--if, of course, you have no
objection, or do not think it better to withhold it."
     "I have no objection, Adam--in fact, if I had, I should have to overcome
it.  I fear there can be no more reserved thoughts between us."
     "Indeed, sir, that sounds serious, worse than serious!"
     "Adam, I greatly fear that the time has come for us--for you and me, at all
events--to speak out plainly to one another.  Does not there seem something very
mysterious about this?"
     "I have thought so, sir, all along.  The only difficulty one has is what
one is to think and where to begin."
     "Let us begin with what you have told me.  First take the conduct of the
mongoose.  He was quiet, even friendly and affectionate with you.  He only
attacked the snakes, which is, after all, his business in life."
     "That is so!"
     "Then we must try to find some reason why he attacked Lady Arabella."
     "May it not be that a mongoose may have merely the instinct to attack, that
nature does not allow or provide him with the fine reasoning powers to
discriminate who he is to attack?"
     "Of course that may be so.  But, on the other hand, should we not satisfy
ourselves why he does wish to attack anything?  If for centuries, this
particular animal is known to attack only one kind of other animal, are we not
justified in assuming that when one of them attacks a hitherto unclassed animal,
he recognises in that animal some quality which it has in common with the
hereditary enemy?"
     "That is a good argument, sir," Adam went on, "but a dangerous one. If we
followed it out, it would lead us to believe that Lady Arabella is a snake."
     "We must be sure, before going to such an end, that there is no point as
yet unconsidered which would account for the unknown thing which puzzles us."
     "In what way?"
     "Well, suppose the instinct works on some physical basis--for instance,
smell.  If there were anything in recent juxtaposition to the attacked which
would carry the scent, surely that would supply the missing cause."
     "Of course!" Adam spoke with conviction.
     "Now, from what you tell me, the negro had just come from the direction of
Diana's Grove, carrying the dead snakes which the mongoose had killed the
previous morning.  Might not the scent have been carried that way?"
     "Of course it might, and probably was.  I never thought of that.  Is there
any possible way of guessing approximately how long a scent will remain?  You
see, this is a natural scent, and may derive from a place where it has been
effective for thousands of years.  Then, does a scent of any kind carry with it
any form or quality of another kind, either good or evil?  I ask you because one
ancient name of the house lived in by the lady who was attacked by the mongoose
was 'The Lair of the White Worm.'  If any of these things be so, our
difficulties have multiplied indefinitely.  They may even change in kind.  We
may get into moral entanglements; before we know it, we may be in the midst of a
struggle between good and evil."
     Sir Nathaniel smiled gravely.
     "With regard to the first question--so far as I know, there are no fixed
periods for which a scent may be active--I think we may take it that that period
does not run into thousands of years.  As to whether any moral change
accompanies a physical one, I can only say that I have met no proof of the fact.
 At the same time, we must remember that 'good' and 'evil' are terms so wide as
to take in the whole scheme of creation, and all that is implied by them and by
their mutual action and reaction.  Generally, I would say that in the scheme of
a First Cause anything is possible.  So long as the inherent forces or
tendencies of any one thing are veiled from us we must expect mystery."
     "There is one other question on which I should like to ask your opinion.
Suppose that there are any permanent forces appertaining to the past, what we
may call 'survivals,' do these belong to good as well as to evil?  For instance,
if the scent of the primaeval monster can so remain in proportion to the
original strength, can the same be true of things of good import?"
     Sir Nathaniel thought for a while before he answered.
     "We must be careful not to confuse the physical and the moral.  I can see
that already you have switched on the moral entirely, so perhaps we had better
follow it up first.  On the side of the moral, we have certain justification for
belief in the utterances of revealed religion.  For instance, 'the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much' is altogether for good.  We
have nothing of a similar kind on the side of evil.  But if we accept this
dictum we need have no more fear of 'mysteries':  these become thenceforth
merely obstacles."
     Adam suddenly changed to another phase of the subject.
     "And now, sir, may I turn for a few minutes to purely practical things, or
rather to matters of historical fact?"
     Sir Nathaniel bowed acquiescence.
     "We have already spoken of the history, so far as it is known, of some of
the places round us--'Castra Regis,' 'Diana's Grove,' and 'The Lair of the White
Worm.'  I would like to ask if there is anything not necessarily of evil import
about any of the places?"
     "Which?" asked Sir Nathaniel shrewdly.
     "Well, for instance, this house and Mercy Farm?"
     "Here we turn," said Sir Nathaniel, "to the other side, the light side of
things.  Let us take Mercy Farm first.  When Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory
to Christianise England, in the time of the Romans, he was received and
protected by Ethelbert, King of Kent, whose wife, daughter of Charibert, King of
Paris, was a Christian, and did much for Augustine.  She founded a nunnery in
memory of Columba, which was named SEDES MISERICORDIOE, the House of Mercy, and,
as the region was Mercian, the two names became involved.  As Columba is the
Latin for dove, the dove became a sort of signification of the nunnery.  She
seized on the idea and made the newly-founded nunnery a house of doves.  Someone
sent her a freshly- discovered dove, a sort of carrier, but which had in the
white feathers of its head and neck the form of a religious cowl.  The nunnery
flourished for more than a century, when, in the time of Penda, who was the
reactionary of heathendom, it fell into decay. In the meantime the doves,
protected by religious feeling, had increased mightily, and were known in all
Catholic communities. When King Offa ruled in Mercia, about a hundred and fifty
years later, he restored Christianity, and under its protection the nunnery of
St. Columba was restored and its doves flourished again. In process of time this
religious house again fell into desuetude; but before it disappeared it had
achieved a great name for good works, and in especial for the piety of its
members.  If deeds and prayers and hopes and earnest thinking leave anywhere any
moral effect, Mercy Farm and all around it have almost the right to be
considered holy ground."
     "Thank you, sir," said Adam earnestly, and was silent.  Sir Nathaniel
understood.
     After lunch that day, Adam casually asked Sir Nathaniel to come for a walk
with him.  The keen-witted old diplomatist guessed that there must be some
motive behind the suggestion, and he at once agreed.
     As soon as they were free from observation, Adam began.
     "I am afraid, sir, that there is more going on in this neighbourhood than
most people imagine.  I was out this morning, and on the edge of the small wood,
I came upon the body of a child by the roadside. At first, I thought she was
dead, and while examining her, I noticed on her neck some marks that looked like
those of teeth."
     "Some wild dog, perhaps?" put in Sir Nathaniel.
     "Possibly, sir, though I think not--but listen to the rest of my news.  I
glanced around, and to my surprise, I noticed something white moving among the
trees.  I placed the child down carefully, and followed, but I could not find
any further traces.  So I returned to the child and resumed my examination, and,
to my delight, I discovered that she was still alive.  I chafed her hands and
gradually she revived, but to my disappointment she remembered nothing--except
that something had crept up quietly from behind, and had gripped her round the
throat.  Then, apparently, she fainted."
     "Gripped her round the throat!  Then it cannot have been a dog."
     "No, sir, that is my difficulty, and explains why I brought you out here,
where we cannot possibly be overheard.  You have noticed, of course, the
peculiar sinuous way in which Lady Arabella moves--well, I feel certain that the
white thing that I saw in the wood was the mistress of Diana's Grove!"
     "Good God, boy, be careful what you say."
     "Yes, sir, I fully realise the gravity of my accusation, but I feel
convinced that the marks on the child's throat were human--and made by a woman."
     Adam's companion remained silent for some time, deep in thought.
     "Adam, my boy," he said at last, "this matter appears to me to be far more
serious even than you think.  It forces me to break confidence with my old
friend, your uncle--but, in order to spare him, I must do so.  For some time
now, things have been happening in this district that have been worrying him
dreadfully--several people have disappeared, without leaving the slightest
trace; a dead child was found by the roadside, with no visible or ascertainable
cause of death--sheep and other animals have been found in the fields, bleeding
from open wounds.  There have been other matters--many of them apparently
trivial in themselves.  Some sinister influence has been at work, and I admit
that I have suspected Lady Arabella--that is why I questioned you so closely
about the mongoose and its strange attack upon Lady Arabella.  You will think it
strange that I should suspect the mistress of Diana's Grove, a beautiful woman
of aristocratic birth.  Let me explain--the family seat is near my own place,
Doom Tower, and at one time I knew the family well.  When still a young girl,
Lady Arabella wandered into a small wood near her home, and did not return.  She
was found unconscious and in a high fever--the doctor said that she had received
a poisonous bite, and the girl being at a delicate and critical age, the result
was serious--so much so that she was not expected to recover.  A great London
physician came down but could do nothing--indeed, he said that the girl would
not survive the night.  All hope had been abandoned, when, to everyone's
surprise, Lady Arabella made a sudden and startling recovery.  Within a couple
of days she was going about as usual!  But to the horror of her people, she
developed a terrible craving for cruelty, maiming and injuring birds and small
animals-- even killing them.  This was put down to a nervous disturbance due to
her age, and it was hoped that her marriage to Captain March would put this
right.  However, it was not a happy marriage, and eventually her husband was
found shot through the head.  I have always suspected suicide, though no pistol
was found near the body. He may have discovered something--God knows what!--so
possibly Lady Arabella may herself have killed him.  Putting together many small
matters that have come to my knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that the
foul White Worm obtained control of her body, just as her soul was leaving its
earthly tenement--that would explain the sudden revival of energy, the strange
and inexplicable craving for maiming and killing, as well as many other matters
with which I need not trouble you now, Adam.  As I said just now, God alone
knows what poor Captain March discovered--it must have been something too
ghastly for human endurance, if my theory is correct that the once beautiful
human body of Lady Arabella is under the control of this ghastly White Worm."
     Adam nodded.
     "But what can we do, sir--it seems a most difficult problem."
     "We can do nothing, my boy--that is the important part of it.  It would be
impossible to take action--all we can do is to keep careful watch, especially as
regards Lady Arabella, and be ready to act, promptly and decisively, if the
opportunity occurs."
     Adam agreed, and the two men returned to Lesser Hill.

     CHAPTER IX--SMELLING DEATH

     Adam Salton, though he talked little, did not let the grass grow under his
feet in any matter which he had undertaken, or in which he was interested.  He
had agreed with Sir Nathaniel that they should not do anything with regard to
the mystery of Lady Arabella's fear of the mongoose, but he steadily pursued his
course in being PREPARED to act whenever the opportunity might come.  He was in
his own mind perpetually casting about for information or clues which might lead
to possible lines of action.  Baffled by the killing of the mongoose, he looked
around for another line to follow.  He was fascinated by the idea of there being
a mysterious link between the woman and the animal, but he was already preparing
a second string to his bow.  His new idea was to use the faculties of Oolanga,
so far as he could, in the service of discovery.  His first move was to send
Davenport to Liverpool to try to find the steward of the WEST AFRICAN, who had
told him about Oolanga, and if possible secure any further information, and then
try to induce (by bribery or other means) the nigger to come to the Brow.  So
soon as he himself could have speech of the Voodoo-man he would be able to learn
from him something useful.  Davenport was successful in his missions, for he had
to get another mongoose, and he was able to tell Adam that he had seen the
steward, who told him much that he wanted to know, and had also arranged for
Oolanga to come to Lesser Hill the following day.  At this point Adam saw his
way sufficiently clear to admit Davenport to some extent into his confidence.
He had come to the conclusion that it would be better--certainly at first--not
himself to appear in the matter, with which Davenport was fully competent to
deal.  It would be time for himself to take a personal part when matters had
advanced a little further.
     If what the nigger said was in any wise true, the man had a rare gift which
might be useful in the quest they were after.  He could, as it were, "smell
death."  If any one was dead, if any one had died, or if a place had been used
in connection with death, he seemed to know the broad fact by intuition.  Adam
made up his mind that to test this faculty with regard to several places would
be his first task.  Naturally he was anxious, and the time passed slowly. The
only comfort was the arrival the next morning of a strong packing case, locked,
from Ross, the key being in the custody of Davenport.  In the case were two
smaller boxes, both locked.  One of them contained a mongoose to replace that
killed by Lady Arabella; the other was the special mongoose which had already
killed the king-cobra in Nepaul.  When both the animals had been safely put
under lock and key, he felt that he might breathe more freely.  No one was
allowed to know the secret of their existence in the house, except himself and
Davenport.  He arranged that Davenport should take Oolanga round the
neighbourhood for a walk, stopping at each of the places which he designated.
Having gone all along the Brow, he was to return the same way and induce him to
touch on the same subjects in talking with Adam, who was to meet them as if by
chance at the farthest part--that beyond Mercy Farm.
     The incidents of the day proved much as Adam expected.  At Mercy Farm, at
Diana's Grove, at Castra Regis, and a few other spots, the negro stopped and,
opening his wide nostrils as if to sniff boldly, said that he smelled death.  It
was not always in the same form.  At Mercy Farm he said there were many small
deaths.  At Diana's Grove his bearing was different.  There was a distinct sense
of enjoyment about him, especially when he spoke of many great deaths.  Here,
too, he sniffed in a strange way, like a bloodhound at check, and looked
puzzled.  He said no word in either praise or disparagement, but in the centre
of the Grove, where, hidden amongst ancient oak stumps, was a block of granite
slightly hollowed on the top, he bent low and placed his forehead on the ground.
 This was the only place where he showed distinct reverence.  At the Castle,
though he spoke of much death, he showed no sign of respect.
     There was evidently something about Diana's Grove which both interested and
baffled him.  Before leaving, he moved all over the place unsatisfied, and in
one spot, close to the edge of the Brow, where there was a deep hollow, he
appeared to be afraid.  After returning several times to this place, he suddenly
turned and ran in a panic of fear to the higher ground, crossing as he did so
the outcropping rock.  Then he seemed to breathe more freely, and recovered some
of his jaunty impudence.
     All this seemed to satisfy Adam's expectations.  He went back to Lesser
Hill with a serene and settled calm upon him.  Sir Nathaniel followed him into
his study.
     "By the way, I forgot to ask you details about one thing.  When that
extraordinary staring episode of Mr. Caswall went on, how did Lilla take it--how
did she bear herself?"
     "She looked frightened, and trembled just as I have seen a pigeon with a
hawk, or a bird with a serpent."
     "Thanks.  It is just as I expected.  There have been circumstances in the
Caswall family which lead one to believe that they have had from the earliest
times some extraordinary mesmeric or hypnotic faculty.  Indeed, a skilled eye
could read so much in their physiognomy.  That shot of yours, whether by
instinct or intention, of the hawk and the pigeon was peculiarly apposite.  I
think we may settle on that as a fixed trait to be accepted throughout our
investigation."
     When dusk had fallen, Adam took the new mongoose--not the one from
Nepaul--and, carrying the box slung over his shoulder, strolled towards Diana's
Grove.  Close to the gateway he met Lady Arabella, clad as usual in tightly
fitting white, which showed off her slim figure.
     To his intense astonishment the mongoose allowed her to pet him, take him
up in her arms and fondle him.  As she was going in his direction, they walked
on together.
     Round the roadway between the entrances of Diana's Grove and Lesser Hill
were many trees, with not much foliage except at the top.  In the dusk this
place was shadowy, and the view was hampered by the clustering trunks.  In the
uncertain, tremulous light which fell through the tree-tops, it was hard to
distinguish anything clearly, and at last, somehow, he lost sight of her
altogether, and turned back on his track to find her.  Presently he came across
her close to her own gate.  She was leaning over the paling of split oak
branches which formed the paling of the avenue.  He could not see the mongoose,
so he asked her where it had gone.
     "He slipt out of my arms while I was petting him," she answered, "and
disappeared under the hedges."
     They found him at a place where the avenue widened so as to let carriages
pass each other.  The little creature seemed quite changed.  He had been
ebulliently active; now he was dull and spiritless--seemed to be dazed.  He
allowed himself to be lifted by either of the pair; but when he was alone with
Lady Arabella he kept looking round him in a strange way, as though trying to
escape. When they had come out on the roadway Adam held the mongoose tight to
him, and, lifting his hat to his companion, moved quickly towards Lesser Hill;
he and Lady Arabella lost sight of each other in the thickening gloom.
     When Adam got home, he put the mongoose in his box, and locked the door of
the room.  The other mongoose--the one from Nepaul--was safely locked in his own
box, but he lay quiet and did not stir. When he got to his study Sir Nathaniel
came in, shutting the door behind him.
     "I have come," he said, "while we have an opportunity of being alone, to
tell you something of the Caswall family which I think will interest you.  There
is, or used to be, a belief in this part of the world that the Caswall family
had some strange power of making the wills of other persons subservient to their
own.  There are many allusions to the subject in memoirs and other unimportant
works, but I only know of one where the subject is spoken of definitely.  It is
MERCIA AND ITS WORTHIES, written by Ezra Toms more than a hundred years ago.
The author goes into the question of the close association of the then Edgar
Caswall with Mesmer in Paris.  He speaks of Caswall being a pupil and the fellow
worker of Mesmer, and states that though, when the latter left France, he took
away with him a vast quantity of philosophical and electric instruments, he was
never known to use them again.  He once made it known to a friend that he had
given them to his old pupil.  The term he used was odd, for it was 'bequeathed,'
but no such bequest of Mesmer was ever made known.  At any rate the instruments
were missing, and never turned up."
     A servant came into the room to tell Adam that there was some strange noise
coming from the locked room into which he had gone when he came in.  He hurried
off to the place at once, Sir Nathaniel going with him.  Having locked the door
behind them, Adam opened the packing-case where the boxes of the two mongooses
were locked up. There was no sound from one of them, but from the other a queer
restless struggling.  Having opened both boxes, he found that the noise was from
the Nepaul animal, which, however, became quiet at once.  In the other box the
new mongoose lay dead, with every appearance of having been strangled!

     CHAPTER X--THE KITE

     On the following day, a little after four o'clock, Adam set out for Mercy.
     He was home just as the clocks were striking six.  He was pale and upset,
but otherwise looked strong and alert.  The old man summed up his appearance and
manner thus:  "Braced up for battle."
     "Now!" said Sir Nathaniel, and settled down to listen, looking at Adam
steadily and listening attentively that he might miss nothing-- even the
inflection of a word.
     "I found Lilla and Mimi at home.  Watford had been detained by business on
the farm.  Miss Watford received me as kindly as before; Mimi, too, seemed glad
to see me.  Mr. Caswall came so soon after I arrived, that he, or someone on his
behalf, must have been watching for me.  He was followed closely by the negro,
who was puffing hard as if he had been running--so it was probably he who
watched.  Mr. Caswall was very cool and collected, but there was a more than
usually iron look about his face that I did not like.  However, we got on very
well.  He talked pleasantly on all sorts of questions. The nigger waited a while
and then disappeared as on the other occasion.  Mr. Caswall's eyes were as usual
fixed on Lilla.  True, they seemed to be very deep and earnest, but there was no
offence in them.  Had it not been for the drawing down of the brows and the
stern set of the jaws, I should not at first have noticed anything. But the
stare, when presently it began, increased in intensity.  I could see that Lilla
began to suffer from nervousness, as on the first occasion; but she carried
herself bravely.  However, the more nervous she grew, the harder Mr. Caswall
stared.  It was evident to me that he had come prepared for some sort of
mesmeric or hypnotic battle.  After a while he began to throw glances round him
and then raised his hand, without letting either Lilla or Mimi see the action.
It was evidently intended to give some sign to the negro, for he came, in his
usual stealthy way, quietly in by the hall door, which was open.  Then Mr.
Caswall's efforts at staring became intensified, and poor Lilla's nervousness
grew greater.  Mimi, seeing that her cousin was distressed, came close to her,
as if to comfort or strengthen her with the consciousness of her presence. This
evidently made a difficulty for Mr. Caswall, for his efforts, without appearing
to get feebler, seemed less effective.  This continued for a little while, to
the gain of both Lilla and Mimi. Then there was a diversion.  Without word or
apology the door opened, and Lady Arabella March entered the room.  I had seen
her coming through the great window.  Without a word she crossed the room and
stood beside Mr. Caswall.  It really was very like a fight of a peculiar kind;
and the longer it was sustained the more earnest--the fiercer--it grew.  That
combination of forces--the over-lord, the white woman, and the black man--would
have cost some- -probably all of them--their lives in the Southern States of
America.  To us it was simply horrible.  But all that you can understand.  This
time, to go on in sporting phrase, it was understood by all to be a 'fight to a
finish,' and the mixed group did not slacken a moment or relax their efforts.
On Lilla the strain began to tell disastrously.  She grew pale--a patchy pallor,
which meant that her nerves were out of order.  She trembled like an aspen, and
though she struggled bravely, I noticed that her legs would hardly support her.
A dozen times she seemed about to collapse in a faint, but each time, on
catching sight of Mimi's eyes, she made a fresh struggle and pulled through.
     "By now Mr. Caswall's face had lost its appearance of passivity. His eyes
glowed with a fiery light.  He was still the old Roman in inflexibility of
purpose; but grafted on to the Roman was a new Berserker fury.  His companions
in the baleful work seemed to have taken on something of his feeling.  Lady
Arabella looked like a soulless, pitiless being, not human, unless it revived
old legends of transformed human beings who had lost their humanity in some
transformation or in the sweep of natural savagery.  As for the negro--well, I
can only say that it was solely due to the self- restraint which you impressed
on me that I did not wipe him out as he stood--without warning, without fair
play--without a single one of the graces of life and death.  Lilla was silent in
the helpless concentration of deadly fear; Mimi was all resolve and self-
forgetfulness, so intent on the soul-struggle in which she was engaged that
there was no possibility of any other thought.  As for myself, the bonds of will
which held me inactive seemed like bands of steel which numbed all my faculties,
except sight and hearing. We seemed fixed in an IMPASSE.  Something must happen,
though the power of guessing was inactive.  As in a dream, I saw Mimi's hand
move restlessly, as if groping for something.  Mechanically it touched that of
Lilla, and in that instant she was transformed.  It was as if youth and strength
entered afresh into something already dead to sensibility and intention.  As if
by inspiration, she grasped the other's band with a force which blenched the
knuckles. Her face suddenly flamed, as if some divine light shone through it.
Her form expanded till it stood out majestically.  Lifting her right hand, she
stepped forward towards Caswall, and with a bold sweep of her arm seemed to
drive some strange force towards him.  Again and again was the gesture repeated,
the man falling back from her at each movement.  Towards the door he retreated,
she following.  There was a sound as of the cooing sob of doves, which seemed to
multiply and intensify with each second.  The sound from the unseen source rose
and rose as he retreated, till finally it swelled out in a triumphant peal, as
she with a fierce sweep of her arm, seemed to hurl something at her foe, and he,
moving his hands blindly before his face, appeared to be swept through the
doorway and out into the open sunlight.
     "All at once my own faculties were fully restored; I could see and hear
everything, and be fully conscious of what was going on.  Even the figures of
the baleful group were there, though dimly seen as through a veil--a shadowy
veil.  I saw Lilla sink down in a swoon, and Mimi throw up her arms in a gesture
of triumph.  As I saw her through the great window, the sunshine flooded the
landscape, which, however, was momentarily becoming eclipsed by an onrush of a
myriad birds."
     By the next morning, daylight showed the actual danger which threatened.
From every part of the eastern counties reports were received concerning the
enormous immigration of birds.  Experts were sending--on their own account, on
behalf of learned societies, and through local and imperial governing
bodies--reports dealing with the matter, and suggesting remedies.
     The reports closer to home were even more disturbing.  All day long it
would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters. Doubtless many
were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to get less.  Each bird
seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking, and the whirring of wings
never ceased nor lessened.  The air was full of a muttered throb.  No window or
barrier could shut out the sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by
the ceaseless murmur.  So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so
melancholy, that all longed, but in vain, for any variety, no matter how
terrible it might be.
     The second morning the reports from all the districts round were more
alarming than ever.  Farmers began to dread the coming of winter as they saw the
dwindling of the timely fruitfulness of the earth.  And as yet it was only a
warning of evil, not the evil accomplished; the ground began to look bare
whenever some passing sound temporarily frightened the birds.
     Edgar Caswall tortured his brain for a long time unavailingly, to think of
some means of getting rid of what he, as well as his neighbours, had come to
regard as a plague of birds.  At last he recalled a circumstance which promised
a solution of the difficulty. The experience was of some years ago in China, far
up-country, towards the head-waters of the Yang-tze-kiang, where the smaller
tributaries spread out in a sort of natural irrigation scheme to supply the
wilderness of paddy-fields.  It was at the time of the ripening rice, and the
myriads of birds which came to feed on the coming crop was a serious menace, not
only to the district, but to the country at large.  The farmers, who were more
or less afflicted with the same trouble every season, knew how to deal with it.
They made a vast kite, which they caused to be flown over the centre spot of the
incursion.  The kite was shaped like a great hawk; and the moment it rose into
the air the birds began to cower and seek protection--and then to disappear.  So
long as that kite was flying overhead the birds lay low and the crop was saved.
Accordingly Caswall ordered his men to construct an immense kite, adhering as
well as they could to the lines of a hawk.  Then he and his men, with a
sufficiency of cord, began to fly it high overhead.  The experience of China was
repeated.  The moment the kite rose, the birds hid or sought shelter.  The
following morning, the kite was still flying high, no bird was to be seen as far
as the eye could reach from Castra Regis.  But there followed in turn what
proved even a worse evil.  All the birds were cowed; their sounds stopped.
Neither song nor chirp was heard--silence seemed to have taken the place of the
normal voices of bird life.  But that was not all.  The silence spread to all
animals.
     The fear and restraint which brooded amongst the denizens of the air began
to affect all life.  Not only did the birds cease song or chirp, but the lowing
of the cattle ceased in the fields and the varied sounds of life died away.  In
place of these things was only a soundless gloom, more dreadful, more
disheartening, more soul- killing than any concourse of sounds, no matter how
full of fear and dread.  Pious individuals put up constant prayers for relief
from the intolerable solitude.  After a little there were signs of universal
depression which those who ran might read.  One and all, the faces of men and
women seemed bereft of vitality, of interest, of thought, and, most of all, of
hope.  Men seemed to have lost the power of expression of their thoughts.  The
soundless air seemed to have the same effect as the universal darkness when men
gnawed their tongues with pain.
     From this infliction of silence there was no relief.  Everything was
affected; gloom was the predominant note.  Joy appeared to have passed away as a
factor of life, and this creative impulse had nothing to take its place.  That
giant spot in high air was a plague of evil influence.  It seemed like a new
misanthropic belief which had fallen on human beings, carrying with it the
negation of all hope.
     After a few days, men began to grow desperate; their very words as well as
their senses seemed to be in chains.  Edgar Caswall again tortured his brain to
find any antidote or palliative of this greater evil than before.  He would
gladly have destroyed the kite, or caused its flying to cease; but the instant
it was pulled down, the birds rose up in even greater numbers; all those who
depended in any way on agriculture sent pitiful protests to Castra Regis.
     It was strange indeed what influence that weird kite seemed to exercise.
Even human beings were affected by it, as if both it and they were realities.
As for the people at Mercy Farm, it was like a taste of actual death.  Lilla
felt it most.  If she had been indeed a real dove, with a real kite hanging over
her in the air, she could not have been more frightened or more affected by the
terror this created.
     Of course, some of those already drawn into the vortex noticed the effect
on individuals.  Those who were interested took care to compare their
information.  Strangely enough, as it seemed to the others, the person who took
the ghastly silence least to heart was the negro.  By nature he was not
sensitive to, or afflicted by, nerves.  This alone would not have produced the
seeming indifference, so they set their minds to discover the real cause. Adam
came quickly to the conclusion that there was for him some compensation that the
others did not share; and he soon believed that that compensation was in one
form or another the enjoyment of the sufferings of others.  Thus the black had a
never-failing source of amusement.
     Lady Arabella's cold nature rendered her immune to anything in the way of
pain or trouble concerning others.  Edgar Caswall was far too haughty a person,
and too stern of nature, to concern himself about poor or helpless people, much
less the lower order of mere animals. Mr. Watford, Mr. Salton, and Sir Nathaniel
were all concerned in the issue, partly from kindness of heart--for none of them
could see suffering, even of wild birds, unmoved--and partly on account of their
property, which had to be protected, or ruin would stare them in the face before
long.
     Lilla suffered acutely.  As time went on, her face became pinched, and her
eyes dull with watching and crying.  Mimi suffered too on account of her
cousin's suffering.  But as she could do nothing, she resolutely made up her
mind to self-restraint and patience.  Adam's frequent visits comforted her.

     CHAPTER XI--MESMER'S CHEST

     After a couple of weeks had passed, the kite seemed to give Edgar Caswall a
new zest for life.  He was never tired of looking at its movements.  He had a
comfortable armchair put out on the tower, wherein he sat sometimes all day
long, watching as though the kite was a new toy and he a child lately come into
possession of it.  He did not seem to have lost interest in Lilla, for he still
paid an occasional visit at Mercy Farm.
     Indeed, his feeling towards her, whatever it had been at first, had now so
far changed that it had become a distinct affection of a purely animal kind.
Indeed, it seemed as though the man's nature had become corrupted, and that all
the baser and more selfish and more reckless qualities had become more
conspicuous.  There was not so much sternness apparent in his nature, because
there was less self-restraint.  Determination had become indifference.
     The visible change in Edgar was that he grew morbid, sad, silent; the
neighbours thought he was going mad.  He became absorbed in the kite, and
watched it not only by day, but often all night long.  It became an obsession to
him.
     Caswall took a personal interest in the keeping of the great kite flying.
He had a vast coil of cord efficient for the purpose, which worked on a roller
fixed on the parapet of the tower.  There was a winch for the pulling in of the
slack; the outgoing line being controlled by a racket.  There was invariably one
man at least, day and night, on the tower to attend to it.  At such an elevation
there was always a strong wind, and at times the kite rose to an enormous
height, as well as travelling for great distances laterally.  In fact, the kite
became, in a short time, one of the curiosities of Castra Regis and all around
it.  Edgar began to attribute to it, in his own mind, almost human qualities.
It became to him a separate entity, with a mind and a soul of its own.  Being
idle-handed all day, he began to apply to what he considered the service of the
kite some of his spare time, and found a new pleasure--a new object in life--in
the old schoolboy game of sending up "runners" to the kite. The way this is done
is to get round pieces of paper so cut that there is a hole in the centre,
through which the string of the kite passes.  The natural action of the
wind-pressure takes the paper along the string, and so up to the kite itself, no
matter how high or how far it may have gone.
     In the early days of this amusement Edgar Caswall spent hours. Hundreds of
such messengers flew along the string, until soon he bethought him of writing
messages on these papers so that he could make known his ideas to the kite.  It
may be that his brain gave way under the opportunities given by his illusion of
the entity of the toy and its power of separate thought.  From sending messages
he came to making direct speech to the kite--without, however, ceasing to send
the runners.  Doubtless, the height of the tower, seated as it was on the
hill-top, the rushing of the ceaseless wind, the hypnotic effect of the lofty
altitude of the speck in the sky at which he gazed, and the rushing of the paper
messengers up the string till sight of them was lost in distance, all helped to
further affect his brain, undoubtedly giving way under the strain of beliefs and
circumstances which were at once stimulating to the imagination, occupative of
his mind, and absorbing.
     The next step of intellectual decline was to bring to bear on the main idea
of the conscious identity of the kite all sorts of subjects which had
imaginative force or tendency of their own.  He had, in Castra Regis, a large
collection of curious and interesting things formed in the past by his
forebears, of similar tastes to his own.  There were all sorts of strange
anthropological specimens, both old and new, which had been collected through
various travels in strange places:  ancient Egyptian relics from tombs and
mummies; curios from Australia, New Zealand, and the South Seas; idols and
images--from Tartar ikons to ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Indian objects of
worship; objects of death and torture of American Indians; and, above all, a
vast collection of lethal weapons of every kind and from every place--Chinese
"high pinders," double knives, Afghan double-edged scimitars made to cut a body
in two, heavy knives from all the Eastern countries, ghost daggers from Thibet,
the terrible kukri of the Ghourka and other hill tribes of India, assassins'
weapons from Italy and Spain, even the knife which was formerly carried by the
slave-drivers of the Mississippi region. Death and pain of every kind were fully
represented in that gruesome collection.
     That it had a fascination for Oolanga goes without saying.  He was never
tired of visiting the museum in the tower, and spent endless hours in inspecting
the exhibits, till he was thoroughly familiar with every detail of all of them.
He asked permission to clean and polish and sharpen them--a favour which was
readily granted.  In addition to the above objects, there were many things of a
kind to awaken human fear.  Stuffed serpents of the most objectionable and
horrid kind; giant insects from the tropics, fearsome in every detail; fishes
and crustaceans covered with weird spikes; dried octopuses of great size.  Other
things, too, there were, not less deadly though seemingly innocuous--dried
fungi, traps intended for birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, and insects; machines
which could produce pain of any kind and degree, and the only mercy of which was
the power of producing speedy death.
     Caswall, who had never before seen any of these things, except those which
he had collected himself, found a constant amusement and interest in them.  He
studied them, their uses, their mechanism-- where there was such--and their
places of origin, until he had an ample and real knowledge of all concerning
them.  Many were secret and intricate, but he never rested till he found out all
the secrets.  When once he had become interested in strange objects, and the way
to use them, he began to explore various likely places for similar finds.  He
began to inquire of his household where strange lumber was kept.  Several of the
men spoke of old Simon Chester as one who knew everything in and about the
house.  Accordingly, he sent for the old man, who came at once.  He was very
old, nearly ninety years of age, and very infirm.  He had been born in the
Castle, and had served its succession of masters--present or absent- -ever
since.  When Edgar began to question him on the subject regarding which he had
sent for him, old Simon exhibited much perturbation.  In fact, he became so
frightened that his master, fully believing that he was concealing something,
ordered him to tell at once what remained unseen, and where it was hidden away.
Face to face with discovery of his secret, the old man, in a pitiable state of
concern, spoke out even more fully than Mr. Caswall had expected.
     "Indeed, indeed, sir, everything is here in the tower that has ever been
put away in my time except--except--" here he began to shake and tremble
it--"except the chest which Mr. Edgar--he who was Mr. Edgar when I first took
service--brought back from France, after he had been with Dr. Mesmer.  The trunk
has been kept in my room for safety; but I shall send it down here now."
     "What is in it?" asked Edgar sharply.
     "That I do not know.  Moreover, it is a peculiar trunk, without any visible
means of opening."
     "Is there no lock?"
     "I suppose so, sir; but I do not know.  There is no keyhole."
     "Send it here; and then come to me yourself."
     The trunk, a heavy one with steel bands round it, but no lock or keyhole,
was carried in by two men.  Shortly afterwards old Simon attended his master.
When he came into the room, Mr. Caswall himself went and closed the door; then
he asked:
     "How do you open it?"
     "I do not know, sir."
     "Do you mean to say that you never opened it?"
     "Most certainly I say so, your honour.  How could I?  It was entrusted to
me with the other things by my master.  To open it would have been a breach of
trust."
     Caswall sneered.
     "Quite remarkable!  Leave it with me.  Close the door behind you. Stay--did
no one ever tell you about it--say anything regarding it-- make any remark?"
     Old Simon turned pale, and put his trembling hands together.
     "Oh, sir, I entreat you not to touch it.  That trunk probably contains
secrets which Dr. Mesmer told my master.  Told them to his ruin!"
     "How do you mean?  What ruin?"
     "Sir, he it was who, men said, sold his soul to the Evil One; I had thought
that that time and the evil of it had all passed away."
     "That will do.  Go away; but remain in your own room, or within call.  I
may want you."
     The old man bowed deeply and went out trembling, but without speaking a
word.

     CHAPTER XII--THE CHEST OPENED

     Left alone in the turret-room, Edgar Caswall carefully locked the door and
hung a handkerchief over the keyhole.  Next, he inspected the windows, and saw
that they were not overlooked from any angle of the main building.  Then he
carefully examined the trunk, going over it with a magnifying glass.  He found
it intact:  the steel bands were flawless; the whole trunk was compact.  After
sitting opposite to it for some time, and the shades of evening beginning to
melt into darkness, he gave up the task and went to his bedroom, after locking
the door of the turret-room behind him and taking away the key.
     He woke in the morning at daylight, and resumed his patient but unavailing
study of the metal trunk.  This he continued during the whole day with the same
result--humiliating disappointment, which overwrought his nerves and made his
head ache.  The result of the long strain was seen later in the afternoon, when
he sat locked within the turret-room before the still baffling trunk, distrait,
listless and yet agitated, sunk in a settled gloom.  As the dusk was falling he
told the steward to send him two men, strong ones.  These he ordered to take the
trunk to his bedroom.  In that room he then sat on into the night, without
pausing even to take any food.  His mind was in a whirl, a fever of excitement.
The result was that when, late in the night, he locked himself in his room his
brain was full of odd fancies; he was on the high road to mental disturbance. He
lay down on his bed in the dark, still brooding over the mystery of the closed
trunk.
     Gradually he yielded to the influences of silence and darkness. After lying
there quietly for some time, his mind became active again.  But this time there
were round him no disturbing influences; his brain was active and able to work
freely and to deal with memory.  A thousand forgotten--or only
half-known--incidents, fragments of conversations or theories long ago guessed
at and long forgotten, crowded on his mind.  He seemed to hear again around him
the legions of whirring wings to which he had been so lately accustomed.  Even
to himself he knew that that was an effort of imagination founded on imperfect
memory.  But he was content that imagination should work, for out of it might
come some solution of the mystery which surrounded him.  And in this frame of
mind, sleep made another and more successful essay.  This time he enjoyed
peaceful slumber, restful alike to his wearied body and his overwrought brain.
     In his sleep he arose, and, as if in obedience to some influence beyond and
greater than himself, lifted the great trunk and set it on a strong table at one
side of the room, from which he had previously removed a quantity of books.  To
do this, he had to use an amount of strength which was, he knew, far beyond him
in his normal state.  As it was, it seemed easy enough; everything yielded
before his touch.  Then he became conscious that somehow--how, he never could
remember--the chest was open.  He unlocked his door, and, taking the chest on
his shoulder, carried it up to the turret- room, the door of which also he
unlocked.  Even at the time he was amazed at his own strength, and wondered
whence it had come.  His mind, lost in conjecture, was too far off to realise
more immediate things.  He knew that the chest was enormously heavy.  He seemed,
in a sort of vision which lit up the absolute blackness around, to see the two
sturdy servant men staggering under its great weight.  He locked himself again
in the turret-room, and laid the opened chest on a table, and in the darkness
began to unpack it, laying out the contents, which were mainly of metal and
glass--great pieces in strange forms--on another table.  He was conscious of
being still asleep, and of acting rather in obedience to some unseen and unknown
command than in accordance with any reasonable plan, to be followed by results
which he understood.  This phase completed, he proceeded to arrange in order the
component parts of some large instruments, formed mostly of glass.  His fingers
seemed to have acquired a new and exquisite subtlety and even a volition of
their own.  Then weariness of brain came upon him; his head sank down on his
breast, and little by little everything became wrapped in gloom.
     He awoke in the early morning in his bedroom, and looked around him, now
clear-headed, in amazement.  In its usual place on the strong table stood the
great steel-hooped chest without lock or key.  But it was now locked.  He arose
quietly and stole to the turret-room. There everything was as it had been on the
previous evening.  He looked out of the window where high in air flew, as usual,
the giant kite.  He unlocked the wicket gate of the turret stair and went out on
the roof.  Close to him was the great coil of cord on its reel. It was humming
in the morning breeze, and when he touched the string it sent a quick thrill
through hand and arm.  There was no sign anywhere that there had been any
disturbance or displacement of anything during the night.
     Utterly bewildered, he sat down in his room to think.  Now for the first
time he FELT that he was asleep and dreaming.  Presently he fell asleep again,
and slept for a long time.  He awoke hungry and made a hearty meal.  Then
towards evening, having locked himself in, he fell asleep again.  When he woke
he was in darkness, and was quite at sea as to his whereabouts.  He began
feeling about the dark room, and was recalled to the consequences of his
position by the breaking of a large piece of glass.  Having obtained a light, he
discovered this to be a glass wheel, part of an elaborate piece of mechanism
which he must in his sleep have taken from the chest, which was now opened.  He
had once again opened it whilst asleep, but he had no recollection of the
circumstances.
     Caswall came to the conclusion that there had been some sort of dual action
of his mind, which might lead to some catastrophe or some discovery of his
secret plans; so he resolved to forgo for a while the pleasure of making
discoveries regarding the chest.  To this end, he applied himself to quite
another matter--an investigation of the other treasures and rare objects in his
collections.  He went amongst them in simple, idle curiosity, his main object
being to discover some strange item which he might use for experiment with the
kite.  He had already resolved to try some runners other than those made of
paper.  He had a vague idea that with such a force as the great kite straining
at its leash, this might be used to lift to the altitude of the kite itself
heavier articles.  His first experiment with articles of little but increasing
weight was eminently successful.  So he added by degrees more and more weight,
until he found out that the lifting power of the kite was considerable.  He then
determined to take a step further, and send to the kite some of the articles
which lay in the steel-hooped chest.  The last time he had opened it in sleep,
it had not been shut again, and he had inserted a wedge so that he could open it
at will.  He made examination of the contents, but came to the conclusion that
the glass objects were unsuitable.  They were too light for testing weight, and
they were so frail as to be dangerous to send to such a height.
     So he looked around for something more solid with which to experiment.  His
eye caught sight of an object which at once attracted him.  This was a small
copy of one of the ancient Egyptian gods--that of Bes, who represented the
destructive power of nature. It was so bizarre and mysterious as to commend
itself to his mad humour.  In lifting it from the cabinet, he was struck by its
great weight in proportion to its size.  He made accurate examination of it by
the aid of some instruments, and came to the conclusion that it was carved from
a lump of lodestone.  He remembered that he had read somewhere of an ancient
Egyptian god cut from a similar substance, and, thinking it over, he came to the
conclusion that he must have read it in Sir Thomas Brown's POPULAR ERRORS, a
book of the seventeenth century.  He got the book from the library, and looked
out the passage:
     "A great example we have from the observation of our learned friend Mr.
Graves, in an AEgyptian idol cut out of Loadstone and found among the Mummies;
which still retains its attraction, though probably taken out of the mine about
two thousand years ago."
     The strangeness of the figure, and its being so close akin to his own
nature, attracted him.  He made from thin wood a large circular runner, and in
front of it placed the weighty god, sending it up to the flying kite along the
throbbing cord.

     CHAPTER XIII--OOLANGA'S HALLUCINATIONS

     During the last few days Lady Arabella had been getting exceedingly
impatient.  Her debts, always pressing, were growing to an embarrassing amount.
The only hope she had of comfort in life was a good marriage; but the good
marriage on which she had fixed her eye did not seem to move quickly
enough--indeed, it did not seem to move at all--in the right direction.  Edgar
Caswall was not an ardent wooer.  From the very first he seemed DIFFICILE, but
he had been keeping to his own room ever since his struggle with Mimi Watford.
On that occasion Lady Arabella had shown him in an unmistakable way what her
feelings were; indeed, she had made it known to him, in a more overt way than
pride should allow, that she wished to help and support him.  The moment when
she had gone across the room to stand beside him in his mesmeric struggle, had
been the very limit of her voluntary action.  It was quite bitter enough, she
felt, that he did not come to her, but now that she had made that advance, she
felt that any withdrawal on his part would, to a woman of her class, be nothing
less than a flaming insult.  Had she not classed herself with his nigger
servant, an unreformed savage?  Had she not shown her preference for him at the
festival of his home-coming?  Had she not. . . Lady Arabella was cold-blooded,
and she was prepared to go through all that might be necessary of indifference,
and even insult, to become chatelaine of Castra Regis.  In the meantime, she
would show no hurry--she must wait.  She might, in an unostentatious way, come
to him again.  She knew him now, and could make a keen guess at his desires with
regard to Lilla Watford.  With that secret in her possession, she could bring
pressure to bear on Caswall which would make it no easy matter for him to evade
her.  The great difficulty was how to get near him.  He was shut up within his
Castle, and guarded by a defence of convention which she could not pass without
danger of ill repute to herself.  Over this question she thought and thought for
days and nights.  At last she decided that the only way would be to go to him
openly at Castra Regis.  Her rank and position would make such a thing possible,
if carefully done.  She could explain matters afterwards if necessary.  Then
when they were alone, she would use her arts and her experience to make him
commit himself.  After all, he was only a man, with a man's dislike of difficult
or awkward situations.  She felt quite sufficient confidence in her own
womanhood to carry her through any difficulty which might arise.
     From Diana's Grove she heard each day the luncheon-gong from Castra Regis
sound, and knew the hour when the servants would be in the back of the house.
She would enter the house at that hour, and, pretending that she could not make
anyone hear her, would seek him in his own rooms.  The tower was, she knew, away
from all the usual sounds of the house, and moreover she knew that the servants
had strict orders not to interrupt him when he was in the turret chamber.  She
had found out, partly by the aid of an opera-glass and partly by judicious
questioning, that several times lately a heavy chest had been carried to and
from his room, and that it rested in the room each night.  She was, therefore,
confident that he had some important work on hand which would keep him busy for
long spells.
     Meanwhile, another member of the household at Castra Regis had schemes
which he thought were working to fruition.  A man in the position of a servant
has plenty of opportunity of watching his betters and forming opinions regarding
them.  Oolanga was in his way a clever, unscrupulous rogue, and he felt that
with things moving round him in this great household there should be
opportunities of self-advancement.  Being unscrupulous and stealthy--and a
savage--he looked to dishonest means.  He saw plainly enough that Lady Arabella
was making a dead set at his master, and he was watchful of the slightest sign
of anything which might enhance this knowledge.  Like the other men in the
house, he knew of the carrying to and fro of the great chest, and had got it
into his head that the care exercised in its porterage indicated that it was
full of treasure. He was for ever lurking around the turret-rooms on the chance
of making some useful discovery.  But he was as cautious as he was stealthy, and
took care that no one else watched him.
     It was thus that the negro became aware of Lady Arabella's venture into the
house, as she thought, unseen.  He took more care than ever, since he was
watching another, that the positions were not reversed.  More than ever he kept
his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut.  Seeing Lady Arabella gliding up the
stairs towards his master's room, he took it for granted that she was there for
no good, and doubled his watching intentness and caution.
     Oolanga was disappointed, but he dared not exhibit any feeling lest it
should betray that he was hiding.  Therefore he slunk downstairs again
noiselessly, and waited for a more favourable opportunity of furthering his
plans.  It must be borne in mind that he thought that the heavy trunk was full
of valuables, and that he believed that Lady Arabella had come to try to steal
it.  His purpose of using for his own advantage the combination of these two
ideas was seen later in the day.  Oolanga secretly followed her home.  He was an
expert at this game, and succeeded admirably on this occasion.  He watched her
enter the private gate of Diana's Grove, and then, taking a roundabout course
and keeping out of her sight, he at last overtook her in a thick part of the
Grove where no one could see the meeting.
     Lady Arabella was much surprised.  She had not seen the negro for several
days, and had almost forgotten his existence.  Oolanga would have been startled
had he known and been capable of understanding the real value placed on him, his
beauty, his worthiness, by other persons, and compared it with the value in
these matters in which he held himself.  Doubtless Oolanga had his dreams like
other men.  In such cases he saw himself as a young sun-god, as beautiful as the
eye of dusky or even white womanhood had ever dwelt upon.  He would have been
filled with all noble and captivating qualities--or those regarded as such in
West Africa.  Women would have loved him, and would have told him so in the
overt and fervid manner usual in affairs of the heart in the shadowy depths of
the forest of the Gold Coast.
     Oolanga came close behind Lady Arabella, and in a hushed voice, suitable to
the importance of his task, and in deference to the respect he had for her and
the place, began to unfold the story of his love.  Lady Arabella was not usually
a humorous person, but no man or woman of the white race could have checked the
laughter which rose spontaneously to her lips.  The circumstances were too
grotesque, the contrast too violent, for subdued mirth.  The man a debased
specimen of one of the most primitive races of the earth, and of an ugliness
which was simply devilish; the woman of high degree, beautiful, accomplished.
She thought that her first moment's consideration of the outrage--it was nothing
less in her eyes--had given her the full material for thought.  But every
instant after threw new and varied lights on the affront.  Her indignation was
too great for passion; only irony or satire would meet the situation.  Her cold,
cruel nature helped, and she did not shrink to subject this ignorant savage to
the merciless fire-lash of her scorn.
     Oolanga was dimly conscious that he was being flouted; but his anger was no
less keen because of the measure of his ignorance.  So he gave way to it, as
does a tortured beast.  He ground his great teeth together, raved, stamped, and
swore in barbarous tongues and with barbarous imagery.  Even Lady Arabella felt
that it was well she was within reach of help, or he might have offered her
brutal violence-- even have killed her.
     "Am I to understand," she said with cold disdain, so much more effective to
wound than hot passion, "that you are offering me your love?  Your--love?"
     For reply he nodded his head.  The scorn of her voice, in a sort of baleful
hiss, sounded--and felt--like the lash of a whip.
     "And you dared! you--a savage--a slave--the basest thing in the world of
vermin!  Take care!  I don't value your worthless life more than I do that of a
rat or a spider.  Don't let me ever see your hideous face here again, or I shall
rid the earth of you."
     As she was speaking, she had taken out her revolver and was pointing it at
him.  In the immediate presence of death his impudence forsook him, and he made
a weak effort to justify himself.  His speech was short, consisting of single
words.  To Lady Arabella it sounded mere gibberish, but it was in his own
dialect, and meant love, marriage, wife.  From the intonation of the words, she
guessed, with her woman's quick intuition, at their meaning; but she quite
failed to follow, when, becoming more pressing, he continued to urge his suit in
a mixture of the grossest animal passion and ridiculous threats. He warned her
that he knew she had tried to steal his master's treasure, and that he had
caught her in the act.  But if she would be his, he would share the treasure
with her, and they could live in luxury in the African forests.  But if she
refused, he would tell his master, who would flog and torture her and then give
her to the police, who would kill her.

     CHAPTER XIV--BATTLE RENEWED

     The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove were acute
and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it.  From Oolanga, this
might have been expected by anyone who knew the character of the tropical
African savage.  To such, there are two passions that are inexhaustible and
insatiable--vanity and that which they are pleased to call love.  Oolanga left
the Grove with an absorbing hatred in his heart.  His lust and greed were afire,
while his vanity had been wounded to the core.  Lady Arabella's icy nature was
not so deeply stirred, though she was in a seething passion. More than ever she
was set upon bringing Edgar Caswall to her feet. The obstacles she had
encountered, the insults she had endured, were only as fuel to the purpose of
revenge which consumed her.
     As she sought her own rooms in Diana's Grove, she went over the whole
subject again and again, always finding in the face of Lilla Watford a key to a
problem which puzzled her--the problem of a way to turn Caswall's powers--his
very existence--to aid her purpose.
     When in her boudoir, she wrote a note, taking so much trouble over it that
she destroyed, and rewrote, till her dainty waste-basket was half-full of torn
sheets of notepaper.  When quite satisfied, she copied out the last sheet
afresh, and then carefully burned all the spoiled fragments.  She put the copied
note in an emblazoned envelope, and directed it to Edgar Caswall at Castra
Regis.  This she sent off by one of her grooms.  The letter ran:
      "DEAR MR. CASWALL,
     "I want to have a chat with you on a subject in which I believe you are
interested.  Will you kindly call for me one day after lunch-- say at three or
four o'clock, and we can walk a little way together. Only as far as Mercy Farm,
where I want to see Lilla and Mimi Watford.  We can take a cup of tea at the
Farm.  Do not bring your African servant with you, as I am afraid his face
frightens the girls.  After all, he is not pretty, is he?  I have an idea you
will be pleased with your visit this time.
     "Yours sincerely, "ARABELLA MARCH."
      At half-past three next day, Edgar Caswall called at Diana's Grove. Lady
Arabella met him on the roadway outside the gate.  She wished to take the
servants into her confidence as little as possible.  She turned when she saw him
coming, and walked beside him towards Mercy Farm, keeping step with him as they
walked.  When they got near Mercy, she turned and looked around her, expecting
to see Oolanga or some sign of him.  He was, however, not visible.  He had
received from his master peremptory orders to keep out of sight--an order for
which the African scored a new offence up against her.  They found Lilla and
Mimi at home and seemingly glad to see them, though both the girls were
surprised at the visit coming so soon after the other.
     The proceedings were a repetition of the battle of souls of the former
visit.  On this occasion, however, Edgar Caswall had only the presence of Lady
Arabella to support him--Oolanga being absent; but Mimi lacked the support of
Adam Salton, which had been of such effective service before.  This time the
struggle for supremacy of will was longer and more determined.  Caswall felt
that if he could not achieve supremacy he had better give up the idea, so all
his pride was enlisted against Mimi.  When they had been waiting for the door to
be opened, Lady Arabella, believing in a sudden attack, had said to him in a low
voice, which somehow carried conviction:
     "This time you should win.  Mimi is, after all, only a woman.  Show her no
mercy.  That is weakness.  Fight her, beat her, trample on her--kill her if need
be.  She stands in your way, and I hate her. Never take your eyes off her.
Never mind Lilla--she is afraid of you.  You are already her master.  Mimi will
try to make you look at her cousin.  There lies defeat.  Let nothing take your
attention from Mimi, and you will win.  If she is overcoming you, take my hand
and hold it hard whilst you are looking into her eyes.  If she is too strong for
you, I shall interfere.  I'll make a diversion, and under cover of it you must
retire unbeaten, even if not victorious. Hush! they are coming."
     The two girls came to the door together.  Strange sounds were coming up
over the Brow from the west.  It was the rustling and crackling of the dry reeds
and rushes from the low lands.  The season had been an unusually dry one.  Also
the strong east wind was helping forward enormous flocks of birds, most of them
pigeons with white cowls. Not only were their wings whirring, but their cooing
was plainly audible.  From such a multitude of birds the mass of sound,
individually small, assumed the volume of a storm.  Surprised at the influx of
birds, to which they had been strangers so long, they all looked towards Castra
Regis, from whose high tower the great kite had been flying as usual.  But even
as they looked, the cord broke, and the great kite fell headlong in a series of
sweeping dives.  Its own weight, and the aerial force opposed to it, which
caused it to rise, combined with the strong easterly breeze, had been too much
for the great length of cord holding it.
     Somehow, the mishap to the kite gave new hope to Mimi.  It was as though
the side issues had been shorn away, so that the main struggle was thenceforth
on simpler lines.  She had a feeling in her heart, as though some religious
chord had been newly touched.  It may, of course, have been that with the
renewal of the bird voices a fresh courage, a fresh belief in the good issue of
the struggle came too.  In the misery of silence, from which they had all
suffered for so long, any new train of thought was almost bound to be a boon.
As the inrush of birds continued, their wings beating against the crackling
rushes, Lady Arabella grew pale, and almost fainted.
     "What is that?" she asked suddenly.
     To Mimi, born and bred in Siam, the sound was strangely like an
exaggeration of the sound produced by a snake-charmer.
     Edgar Caswall was the first to recover from the interruption of the falling
kite.  After a few minutes he seemed to have quite recovered his SANG FROID, and
was able to use his brains to the end which he had in view.  Mimi too quickly
recovered herself, but from a different cause.  With her it was a deep religious
conviction that the struggle round her was of the powers of Good and Evil, and
that Good was triumphing.  The very appearance of the snowy birds, with the
cowls of Saint Columba, heightened the impression.  With this conviction strong
upon her, she continued the strange battle with fresh vigour.  She seemed to
tower over Caswall, and he to give back before her oncoming.  Once again her
vigorous passes drove him to the door.  He was just going out backward when Lady
Arabella, who had been gazing at him with fixed eyes, caught his hand and tried
to stop his movement.  She was, however, unable to do any good, and so, holding
hands, they passed out together.  As they did so, the strange music which had so
alarmed Lady Arabella suddenly stopped. Instinctively they all looked towards
the tower of Castra Regis, and saw that the workmen had refixed the kite, which
had risen again and was beginning to float out to its former station.
     As they were looking, the door opened and Michael Watford came into the
room.  By that time all had recovered their self-possession, and there was
nothing out of the common to attract his attention.  As he came in, seeing
inquiring looks all around him, he said:
     "The new influx of birds is only the annual migration of pigeons from
Africa.  I am told that it will soon be over."
     The second victory of Mimi Watford made Edgar Caswall more moody than ever.
 He felt thrown back on himself, and this, added to his absorbing interest in
the hope of a victory of his mesmeric powers, became a deep and settled purpose
of revenge.  The chief object of his animosity was, of course, Mimi, whose will
had overcome his, but it was obscured in greater or lesser degree by all who had
opposed him.  Lilla was next to Mimi in his hate--Lilla, the harmless,
tender-hearted, sweet-natured girl, whose heart was so full of love for all
things that in it was no room for the passions of ordinary life--whose nature
resembled those doves of St. Columba, whose colour she wore, whose appearance
she reflected.  Adam Salton came next--after a gap; for against him Caswall had
no direct animosity. He regarded him as an interference, a difficulty to be got
rid of or destroyed.  The young Australian had been so discreet that the most he
had against him was his knowledge of what had been.  Caswall did not understand
him, and to such a nature as his, ignorance was a cause of alarm, of dread.
     Caswall resumed his habit of watching the great kite straining at its cord,
varying his vigils in this way by a further examination of the mysterious
treasures of his house, especially Mesmer's chest. He sat much on the roof of
the tower, brooding over his thwarted passion.  The vast extent of his
possessions, visible to him at that altitude, might, one would have thought,
have restored some of his complacency.  But the very extent of his ownership,
thus perpetually brought before him, created a fresh sense of grievance.  How
was it, he thought, that with so much at command that others wished for, he
could not achieve the dearest wishes of his heart?
     In this state of intellectual and moral depravity, he found a solace in the
renewal of his experiments with the mechanical powers of the kite.  For a couple
of weeks he did not see Lady Arabella, who was always on the watch for a chance
of meeting him; neither did he see the Watford girls, who studiously kept out of
his way.  Adam Salton simply marked time, keeping ready to deal with anything
that might affect his friends.  He called at the farm and heard from Mimi of the
last battle of wills, but it had only one consequence.  He got from Ross several
more mongooses, including a second king-cobra- killer, which he generally
carried with him in its box whenever he walked out.
     Mr. Caswall's experiments with the kite went on successfully.  Each day he
tried the lifting of greater weight, and it seemed almost as if the machine had
a sentience of its own, which was increasing with the obstacles placed before
it.  All this time the kite hung in the sky at an enormous height.  The wind was
steadily from the north, so the trend of the kite was to the south.  All day
long, runners of increasing magnitude were sent up.  These were only of paper or
thin cardboard, or leather, or other flexible materials.  The great height at
which the kite hung made a great concave curve in the string, so that as the
runners went up they made a flapping sound. If one laid a finger on the string,
the sound answered to the flapping of the runner in a sort of hollow
intermittent murmur. Edgar Caswall, who was now wholly obsessed by the kite and
all belonging to it, found a distinct resemblance between that intermittent
rumble and the snake-charming music produced by the pigeons flying through the
dry reeds.
     One day he made a discovery in Mesmer's chest which he thought he would
utilise with regard to the runners.  This was a great length of wire, "fine as
human hair," coiled round a finely made wheel, which ran to a wondrous distance
freely, and as lightly.  He tried this on runners, and found it work admirably.
Whether the runner was alone, or carried something much more weighty than
itself, it worked equally well.  Also it was strong enough and light enough to
draw back the runner without undue strain.  He tried this a good many times
successfully, but it was now growing dusk and he found some difficulty in
keeping the runner in sight.  So he looked for something heavy enough to keep it
still.  He placed the Egyptian image of Bes on the fine wire, which crossed the
wooden ledge which protected it.  Then, the darkness growing, he went indoors
and forgot all about it.
     He had a strange feeling of uneasiness that night--not sleeplessness, for
he seemed conscious of being asleep.  At daylight he rose, and as usual looked
out for the kite.  He did not see it in its usual position in the sky, so looked
round the points of the compass.  He was more than astonished when presently he
saw the missing kite struggling as usual against the controlling cord.  But it
had gone to the further side of the tower, and now hung and strained AGAINST THE
WIND to the north.  He thought it so strange that he determined to investigate
the phenomenon, and to say nothing about it in the meantime.
     In his many travels, Edgar Caswall had been accustomed to use the sextant,
and was now an expert in the matter.  By the aid of this and other instruments,
he was able to fix the position of the kite and the point over which it hung.
He was startled to find that exactly under it--so far as he could ascertain--was
Diana's Grove. He had an inclination to take Lady Arabella into his confidence
in the matter, but he thought better of it and wisely refrained.  For some
reason which he did not try to explain to himself, he was glad of his silence,
when, on the following morning, he found, on looking out, that the point over
which the kite then hovered was Mercy Farm. When he had verified this with his
instruments, he sat before the window of the tower, looking out and thinking.
The new locality was more to his liking than the other; but the why of it
puzzled him, all the same.  He spent the rest of the day in the turret-room,
which he did not leave all day.  It seemed to him that he was now drawn by
forces which he could not control--of which, indeed, he had no knowledge--in
directions which he did not understand, and which were without his own volition.
 In sheer helpless inability to think the problem out satisfactorily, he called
up a servant and told him to tell Oolanga that he wanted to see him at once in
the turret- room.  The answer came back that the African had not been seen since
the previous evening.
     Caswall was now so irritable that even this small thing upset him. As he
was distrait and wanted to talk to somebody, he sent for Simon Chester, who came
at once, breathless with hurrying and upset by the unexpected summons.  Caswall
bade him sit down, and when the old man was in a less uneasy frame of mind, he
again asked him if he had ever seen what was in Mesmer's chest or heard it
spoken about.
     Chester admitted that he had once, in the time of "the then Mr. Edgar,"
seen the chest open, which, knowing something of its history and guessing more,
so upset him that he had fainted.  When he recovered, the chest was closed.
From that time the then Mr. Edgar had never spoken about it again.
     When Caswall asked him to describe what he had seen when the chest was
open, he got very agitated, and, despite all his efforts to remain calm, he
suddenly went off into a faint.  Caswall summoned servants, who applied the
usual remedies.  Still the old man did not recover.  After the lapse of a
considerable time, the doctor who had been summoned made his appearance.  A
glance was sufficient for him to make up his mind.  Still, he knelt down by the
old man, and made a careful examination.  Then he rose to his feet, and in a
hushed voice said:
     "I grieve to say, sir, that he has passed away."

     CHAPTER XV--ON THE TRACK

     Those who had seen Edgar Caswall familiarly since his arrival, and had
already estimated his cold-blooded nature at something of its true value, were
surprised that he took so to heart the death of old Chester.  The fact was that
not one of them had guessed correctly at his character.  They thought, naturally
enough, that the concern which he felt was that of a master for a faithful old
servant of his family.  They little thought that it was merely the selfish
expression of his disappointment, that he had thus lost the only remaining clue
to an interesting piece of family history--one which was now and would be for
ever wrapped in mystery.  Caswall knew enough about the life of his ancestor in
Paris to wish to know more fully and more thoroughly all that had been.  The
period covered by that ancestor's life in Paris was one inviting every form of
curiosity.
     Lady Arabella, who had her own game to play, saw in the METIER of
sympathetic friend, a series of meetings with the man she wanted to secure.  She
made the first use of the opportunity the day after old Chester's death; indeed,
as soon as the news had filtered in through the back door of Diana's Grove.  At
that meeting, she played her part so well that even Caswall's cold nature was
impressed.
     Oolanga was the only one who did not credit her with at least some sense of
fine feeling in the matter.  In emotional, as in other matters, Oolanga was
distinctly a utilitarian, and as he could not understand anyone feeling grief
except for his own suffering, pain, or for the loss of money, he could not
understand anyone simulating such an emotion except for show intended to
deceive.  He thought that she had come to Castra Regis again for the opportunity
of stealing something, and was determined that on this occasion the chance of
pressing his advantage over her should not pass.  He felt, therefore, that the
occasion was one for extra carefulness in the watching of all that went on.
Ever since he had come to the conclusion that Lady Arabella was trying to steal
the treasure- chest, he suspected nearly everyone of the same design, and made
it a point to watch all suspicious persons and places.  As Adam was engaged on
his own researches regarding Lady Arabella, it was only natural that there
should be some crossing of each other's tracks. This is what did actually
happen.
     Adam had gone for an early morning survey of the place in which he was
interested, taking with him the mongoose in its box.  He arrived at the gate of
Diana's Grove just as Lady Arabella was preparing to set out for Castra Regis on
what she considered her mission of comfort.  Seeing Adam from her window going
through the shadows of the trees round the gate, she thought that he must be
engaged on some purpose similar to her own.  So, quickly making her toilet, she
quietly left the house, and, taking advantage of every shadow and substance
which could hide her, followed him on his walk.
     Oolanga, the experienced tracker, followed her, but succeeded in hiding his
movements better than she did.  He saw that Adam had on his shoulder a
mysterious box, which he took to contain something valuable.  Seeing that Lady
Arabella was secretly following Adam, he was confirmed in this idea.  His
mind--such as it was--was fixed on her trying to steal, and he credited her at
once with making use of this new opportunity.
     In his walk, Adam went into the grounds of Castra Regis, and Oolanga saw
her follow him with great secrecy.  He feared to go closer, as now on both sides
of him were enemies who might make discovery. When he realised that Lady
Arabella was bound for the Castle, he devoted himself to following her with
singleness of purpose.  He therefore missed seeing that Adam branched off the
track and returned to the high road.
     That night Edgar Caswall had slept badly.  The tragic occurrence of the day
was on his mind, and he kept waking and thinking of it. After an early
breakfast, he sat at the open window watching the kite and thinking of many
things.  From his room he could see all round the neighbourhood, but the two
places that interested him most were Mercy Farm and Diana's Grove.  At first the
movements about those spots were of a humble kind--those that belong to domestic
service or agricultural needs--the opening of doors and windows, the sweeping
and brushing, and generally the restoration of habitual order.
     From his high window--whose height made it a screen from the observation of
others--he saw the chain of watchers move into his own grounds, and then
presently break up--Adam Salton going one way, and Lady Arabella, followed by
the nigger, another.  Then Oolanga disappeared amongst the trees; but Caswall
could see that he was still watching.  Lady Arabella, after looking around her,
slipped in by the open door, and he could, of course, see her no longer.
     Presently, however, he heard a light tap at his door, then the door opened
slowly, and he could see the flash of Lady Arabella's white dress through the
opening.

     CHAPTER XVI--A VISIT OF SYMPATHY

     Caswall was genuinely surprised when he saw Lady Arabella, though he need
not have been, after what had already occurred in the same way. The look of
surprise on his face was so much greater than Lady Arabella had expected--though
she thought she was prepared to meet anything that might occur--that she stood
still, in sheer amazement. Cold-blooded as she was and ready for all social
emergencies, she was nonplussed how to go on.  She was plucky, however, and
began to speak at once, although she had not the slightest idea what she was
going to say.
     "I came to offer you my very warm sympathy with the grief you have so
lately experienced."
     "My grief?  I'm afraid I must be very dull; but I really do not
understand."
     Already she felt at a disadvantage, and hesitated.
     "I mean about the old man who died so suddenly--your old. . . retainer."
     Caswall's face relaxed something of its puzzled concentration.
     "Oh, he was only a servant; and he had over-stayed his three-score and ten
years by something like twenty years.  He must have been ninety!"
     "Still, as an old servant. . . "
     Caswall's words were not so cold as their inflection.
     "I never interfere with servants.  He was kept on here merely because he
had been so long on the premises.  I suppose the steward thought it might make
him unpopular if the old fellow had been dismissed."
     How on earth was she to proceed on such a task as hers if this was the
utmost geniality she could expect?  So she at once tried another tack--this time
a personal one.
     "I am sorry I disturbed you.  I am really not unconventional--though
certainly no slave to convention.  Still there are limits. . . it is bad enough
to intrude in this way, and I do not know what you can say or think of the time
selected, for the intrusion."
     After all, Edgar Caswall was a gentleman by custom and habit, so he rose to
the occasion.
     "I can only say, Lady Arabella, that you are always welcome at any time you
may deign to honour my house with your presence."
     She smiled at him sweetly.
     "Thank you SO much.  You DO put one at ease.  My breach of convention makes
me glad rather than sorry.  I feel that I can open my heart to you about
anything."
     Forthwith she proceeded to tell him about Oolanga and his strange
suspicions of her honesty.  Caswall laughed and made her explain all the
details.  His final comment was enlightening.
     "Let me give you a word of advice:  If you have the slightest fault to find
with that infernal nigger, shoot him at sight.  A swelled- headed nigger, with a
bee in his bonnet, is one of the worst difficulties in the world to deal with.
So better make a clean job of it, and wipe him out at once!"
     "But what about the law, Mr. Caswall?"
     "Oh, the law doesn't concern itself much about dead niggers.  A few more or
less do not matter.  To my mind it's rather a relief!"
     "I'm afraid of you," was her only comment, made with a sweet smile and in a
soft voice.
     "All right," he said, "let us leave it at that.  Anyhow, we shall be rid of
one of them!"
     "I don't love niggers any more than you do," she replied, "and I suppose
one mustn't be too particular where that sort of cleaning up is concerned."
Then she changed in voice and manner, and asked genially:  "And now tell me, am
I forgiven?"
     "You are, dear lady--if there is anything to forgive."
     As he spoke, seeing that she had moved to go, he came to the door with her,
and in the most natural way accompanied her downstairs. He passed through the
hall with her and down the avenue.  As he went back to the house, she smiled to
herself.
     "Well, that is all right.  I don't think the morning has been altogether
thrown away."
     And she walked slowly back to Diana's Grove.
     Adam Salton followed the line of the Brow, and refreshed his memory as to
the various localities.  He got home to Lesser Hill just as Sir Nathaniel was
beginning lunch.  Mr. Salton had gone to Walsall to keep an early appointment;
so he was all alone.  When the meal was over--seeing in Adam's face that he had
something to speak about--he followed into the study and shut the door.
     When the two men had lighted their pipes, Sir Nathaniel began.
     "I have remembered an interesting fact about Diana's Grove--there is, I
have long understood, some strange mystery about that house. It may be of some
interest, or it may be trivial, in such a tangled skein as we are trying to
unravel."
     "Please tell me all you know' or suspect.  To begin, then, of what sort is
the mystery--physical, mental, moral, historical, scientific, occult?  Any kind
of hint will help me."
     "Quite right.  I shall try to tell you what I think; but I have not put my
thoughts on the subject in sequence, so you must forgive me if due order is not
observed in my narration.  I suppose you have seen the house at Diana's Grove?"
     "The outside of it; but I have that in my mind's eye, and I can fit into my
memory whatever you may mention."
     "The house is very old--probably the first house of some sort that stood
there was in the time of the Romans.  This was probably renewed--perhaps several
times at later periods.  The house stands, or, rather, used to stand here when
Mercia was a kingdom--I do not suppose that the basement can be later than the
Norman Conquest. Some years ago, when I was President of the Mercian
Archaeological Society, I went all over it very carefully.  This was when it was
purchased by Captain March.  The house had then been done up, so as to be
suitable for the bride.  The basement is very strong,--almost as strong and as
heavy as if it had been intended as a fortress. There are a whole series of
rooms deep underground.  One of them in particular struck me.  The room itself
is of considerable size, but the masonry is more than massive.  In the middle of
the room is a sunk well, built up to floor level and evidently going deep
underground.  There is no windlass nor any trace of there ever having been
any--no rope--nothing.  Now, we know that the Romans had wells of immense depth,
from which the water was lifted by the 'old rag rope'; that at Woodhull used to
be nearly a thousand feet. Here, then, we have simply an enormously deep
well-hole.  The door of the room was massive, and was fastened with a lock
nearly a foot square.  It was evidently intended for some kind of protection to
someone or something; but no one in those days had ever heard of anyone having
been allowed even to see the room.  All this is E PROPOS of a suggestion on my
part that the well-hole was a way by which the White Worm (whatever it was) went
and came.  At that time I would have had a search made--even excavation if
necessary--at my own expense, but all suggestions were met with a prompt and
explicit negative.  So, of course, I took no further step in the matter. Then it
died out of recollection--even of mine."
     "Do you remember, sir," asked Adam, "what was the appearance of the room
where the well-hole was?  Was there furniture--in fact, any sort of thing in the
room?"
     "The only thing I remember was a sort of green light--very clouded, very
dim--which came up from the well.  Not a fixed light, but intermittent and
irregular--quite unlike anything I had ever seen."
     "Do you remember how you got into the well-room?  Was there a separate door
from outside, or was there any interior room or passage which opened into it?"
     "I think there must have been some room with a way into it.  I remember
going up some steep steps; they must have been worn smooth by long use or
something of the kind, for I could hardly keep my feet as I went up.  Once I
stumbled and nearly fell into the well- hole."
     "Was there anything strange about the place--any queer smell, for
instance?"
     "Queer smell--yes!  Like bilge or a rank swamp.  It was distinctly
nauseating; when I came out I felt as if I had just been going to be sick.  I
shall try back on my visit and see if I can recall any more of what I saw or
felt."
     "Then perhaps, sir, later in the day you will tell me anything you may
chance to recollect."
     "I shall be delighted, Adam.  If your uncle has not returned by then, I'll
join you in the study after dinner, and we can resume this interesting chat."

     CHAPTER XVII--THE MYSTERY OF "THE GROVE"

     That afternoon Adam decided to do a little exploring.  As he passed through
the wood outside the gate of Diana's Grove, he thought he saw the African's face
for an instant.  So he went deeper into the undergrowth, and followed along
parallel to the avenue to the house. He was glad that there was no workman or
servant about, for he did not care that any of Lady Arabella's people should
find him wandering about her grounds.  Taking advantage of the denseness of the
trees, he came close to the house and skirted round it.  He was repaid for his
trouble, for on the far side of the house, close to where the rocky frontage of
the cliff fell away, he saw Oolanga crouched behind the irregular trunk of a
great oak.  The man was so intent on watching someone, or something, that he did
not guard against being himself watched.  This suited Adam, for he could thus
make scrutiny at will.
     The thick wood, though the trees were mostly of small girth, threw a heavy
shadow, so that the steep declension, in front of which grew the tree behind
which the African lurked, was almost in darkness. Adam drew as close as he
could, and was amazed to see a patch of light on the ground before him; when he
realised what it was, he was determined, more than ever to follow on his quest.
The nigger had a dark lantern in his hand, and was throwing the light down the
steep incline.  The glare showed a series of stone steps, which ended in a
low-lying heavy iron door fixed against the side of the house.  All the strange
things he had heard from Sir Nathaniel, and all those, little and big, which he
had himself noticed, crowded into his mind in a chaotic way.  Instinctively he
took refuge behind a thick oak stem, and set himself down, to watch what might
occur.
     After a short time it became apparent that the African was trying to find
out what was behind the heavy door.  There was no way of looking in, for the
door fitted tight into the massive stone slabs. The only opportunity for the
entrance of light was through a small hole between the great stones above the
door.  This hole was too high up to look through from the ground level.
Oolanga, having tried standing tiptoe on the highest point near, and holding the
lantern as high as he could, threw the light round the edges of the door to see
if he could find anywhere a hole or a flaw in the metal through which he could
obtain a glimpse.  Foiled in this, he brought from the shrubbery a plank, which
he leant against the top of the door and then climbed up with great dexterity.
This did not bring him near enough to the window-hole to look in, or even to
throw the light of the lantern through it, so he climbed down and carried the
plank back to the place from which he had got it.  Then he concealed himself
near the iron door and waited, manifestly with the intent of remaining there
till someone came near.  Presently Lady Arabella, moving noiselessly through the
shade, approached the door.  When he saw her close enough to touch it, Oolanga
stepped forward from his concealment, and spoke in a whisper, which through the
gloom sounded like a hiss.
     "I want to see you, missy--soon and secret."
     "What do you want?"
     "You know well, missy; I told you already."
     She turned on him with blazing eyes, the green tint in them glowing like
emeralds.
     "Come, none of that.  If there is anything sensible which you wish to say
to me, you can see me here, just where we are, at seven o'clock."
     He made no reply in words, but, putting the backs of his hands together,
bent lower and lower till his forehead touched the earth. Then he rose and went
slowly away.
     Adam Salton, from his hiding-place, saw and wondered.  In a few minutes he
moved from his place and went home to Lesser Hill, fully determined that seven
o'clock would find him in some hidden place behind Diana's Grove.
     At a little before seven Adam stole softly out of the house and took the
back-way to the rear of Diana's Grove.  The place seemed silent and deserted, so
he took the opportunity of concealing himself near the spot whence he had seen
Oolanga trying to investigate whatever was concealed behind the iron door.  He
waited, perfectly still, and at last saw a gleam of white passing soundlessly
through the undergrowth.  He was not surprised when he recognised the colour of
Lady Arabella's dress.  She came close and waited, with her face to the iron
door.  From some place of concealment near at hand Oolanga appeared, and came
close to her.  Adam noticed, with surprised amusement, that over his shoulder
was the box with the mongoose.  Of course the African did not know that he was
seen by anyone, least of all by the man whose property he had with him.
     Silent-footed as he was, Lady Arabella heard him coming, and turned to meet
him.  It was somewhat hard to see in the gloom, for, as usual, he was all in
black, only his collar and cuffs showing white. Lady Arabella opened the
conversation which ensued between the two.
     "What do you want?  To rob me, or murder me?"
     "No, to lub you!"
     This frightened her a little, and she tried to change the tone.
     "Is that a coffin you have with you?  If so, you are wasting your time.  It
would not hold me."
     When a nigger suspects he is being laughed at, all the ferocity of his
nature comes to the front; and this man was of the lowest kind.
     "Dis ain't no coffin for nobody.  Dis box is for you.  Somefin you lub.  Me
give him to you!"
     Still anxious to keep off the subject of affection, on which she believed
him to have become crazed, she made another effort to keep his mind elsewhere.
     "Is this why you want to see me?"  He nodded.  "Then come round to the
other door.  But be quiet.  I have no desire to be seen so close to my own house
in conversation with a--a--a nigger like you!"
     She had chosen the word deliberately.  She wished to meet his passion with
another kind.  Such would, at all events, help to keep him quiet.  In the deep
gloom she could not see the anger which suffused his face.  Rolling eyeballs and
grinding teeth are, however, sufficient signs of anger to be decipherable in the
dark. She moved round the corner of the house to her right.  Oolanga was
following her, when she stopped him by raising her hand.
     "No, not that door," she said; "that is not for niggers.  The other door
will do well enough for you!"
     Lady Arabella took in her hand a small key which hung at the end of her
watch-chain, and moved to a small door, low down, round the corner, and a little
downhill from the edge of the Brow.  Oolanga, in obedience to her gesture, went
back to the iron door.  Adam looked carefully at the mongoose box as the African
went by, and was glad to see that it was intact.  Unconsciously, as he looked,
he fingered the key that was in his waistcoat pocket.  When Oolanga was out of
sight, Adam hurried after Lady Arabella.

     CHAPTER XVIII--EXIT OOLANGA

     The woman turned sharply as Adam touched her shoulder.
     "One moment whilst we are alone.  You had better not trust that nigger!" he
whispered.
     Her answer was crisp and concise:
     "I don't."
     "Forewarned is forearmed.  Tell me if you will--it is for your own
protection.  Why do you mistrust him?"
     "My friend, you have no idea of that man's impudence.  Would you believe
that he wants me to marry him?"
     "No!" said Adam incredulously, amused in spite of himself.
     "Yes, and wanted to bribe me to do it by sharing a chest of treasure--at
least, he thought it was--stolen from Mr. Caswall.  Why do you distrust him, Mr.
Salton?"
     "Did you notice that box he had slung on his shoulder?  That belongs to me.
 I left it in the gun-room when I went to lunch.  He must have crept in and
stolen it.  Doubtless he thinks that it, too, is full of treasure."
     "He does!"
     "How on earth do you know?" asked Adam.
     "A little while ago he offered to give it to me--another bribe to accept
him.  Faugh!  I am ashamed to tell you such a thing.  The beast!"
     Whilst they had been speaking, she had opened the door, a narrow iron one,
well hung, for it opened easily and closed tightly without any creaking or sound
of any kind.  Within all was dark; but she entered as freely and with as little
misgiving or restraint as if it had been broad daylight.  For Adam, there was
just sufficient green light from somewhere for him to see that there was a broad
flight of heavy stone steps leading upward; but Lady Arabella, after shutting
the door behind her, when it closed tightly without a clang, tripped up the
steps lightly and swiftly.  For an instant all was dark, but there came again
the faint green light which enabled him to see the outlines of things.  Another
iron door, narrow like the first and fairly high, led into another large room,
the walls of which were of massive stones, so closely joined together as to
exhibit only one smooth surface.  This presented the appearance of having at one
time been polished.  On the far side, also smooth like the walls, was the
reverse of a wide, but not high, iron door.  Here there was a little more light,
for the high-up aperture over the door opened to the air.
     Lady Arabella took from her girdle another small key, which she inserted in
a keyhole in the centre of a massive lock.  The great bolt seemed wonderfully
hung, for the moment the small key was turned, the bolts of the great lock moved
noiselessly and the iron doors swung open.  On the stone steps outside stood
Oolanga, with the mongoose box slung over his shoulder.  Lady Arabella stood a
little on one side, and the African, accepting the movement as an invitation,
entered in an obsequious way.  The moment, however, that he was inside, he gave
a quick look around him.
     "Much death here--big death.  Many deaths.  Good, good!"
     He sniffed round as if he was enjoying the scent.  The matter and manner of
his speech were so revolting that instinctively Adam's hand wandered to his
revolver, and, with his finger on the trigger, he rested satisfied that he was
ready for any emergency.
     There was certainly opportunity for the nigger's enjoyment, for the open
well-hole was almost under his nose, sending up such a stench as almost made
Adam sick, though Lady Arabella seemed not to mind it at all.  It was like
nothing that Adam had ever met with.  He compared it with all the noxious
experiences he had ever had--the drainage of war hospitals, of slaughter-houses,
the refuse of dissecting rooms.  None of these was like it, though it had
something of them all, with, added, the sourness of chemical waste and the
poisonous effluvium of the bilge of a water-logged ship whereon a multitude of
rats had been drowned.
     Then, quite unexpectedly, the negro noticed the presence of a third
person--Adam Salton!  He pulled out a pistol and shot at him, happily missing.
Adam was himself usually a quick shot, but this time his mind had been on
something else and he was not ready. However, he was quick to carry out an
intention, and he was not a coward.  In another moment both men were in grips.
Beside them was the dark well-hole, with that horrid effluvium stealing up from
its mysterious depths.
     Adam and Oolanga both had pistols; Lady Arabella, who had not one, was
probably the most ready of them all in the theory of shooting, but that being
impossible, she made her effort in another way. Gliding forward, she tried to
seize the African; but he eluded her grasp, just missing, in doing so, falling
into the mysterious hole. As he swayed back to firm foothold, he turned his own
gun on her and shot.  Instinctively Adam leaped at his assailant; clutching at
each other, they tottered on the very brink.
     Lady Arabella's anger, now fully awake, was all for Oolanga.  She moved
towards him with her hands extended, and had just seized him when the catch of
the locked box--due to some movement from within-- flew open, and the
king-cobra-killer flew at her with a venomous fury impossible to describe.  As
it seized her throat, she caught hold of it, and, with a fury superior to its
own, tore it in two just as if it had been a sheet of paper.  The strength used
for such an act must have been terrific.  In an instant, it seemed to spout
blood and entrails, and was hurled into the well-hole.  In another instant she
had seized Oolanga, and with a swift rush had drawn him, her white arms
encircling him, down with her into the gaping aperture.
     Adam saw a medley of green and red lights blaze in a whirling circle, and
as it sank down into the well, a pair of blazing green eyes became fixed, sank
lower and lower with frightful rapidity, and disappeared, throwing upward the
green light which grew more and more vivid every moment.  As the light sank into
the noisome depths, there came a shriek which chilled Adam's blood--a prolonged
agony of pain and terror which seemed to have no end.
     Adam Salton felt that he would never be able to free his mind from the
memory of those dreadful moments.  The gloom which surrounded that horrible
charnel pit, which seemed to go down to the very bowels of the earth, conveyed
from far down the sights and sounds of the nethermost hell.  The ghastly fate of
the African as he sank down to his terrible doom, his black face growing grey
with terror, his white eyeballs, now like veined bloodstone, rolling in the
helpless extremity of fear.  The mysterious green light was in itself a milieu
of horror.  And through it all the awful cry came up from that fathomless pit,
whose entrance was flooded with spots of fresh blood.  Even the death of the
fearless little snake-killer--so fierce, so frightful, as if stained with a
ferocity which told of no living force above earth, but only of the devils of
the pit--was only an incident.  Adam was in a state of intellectual tumult,
which had no parallel in his experience.  He tried to rush away from the
horrible place; even the baleful green light, thrown up through the gloomy
well-shaft, was dying away as its source sank deeper into the primeval ooze.
The darkness was closing in on him in overwhelming density--darkness in such a
place and with such a memory of it!
     He made a wild rush forward--slipt on the steps in some sticky,
acrid-smelling mass that felt and smelt like blood, and, falling forward, felt
his way into the inner room, where the well-shaft was not.
     Then he rubbed his eyes in sheer amazement.  Up the stone steps from the
narrow door by which he had entered, glided the white-clad figure of Lady
Arabella, the only colour to be seen on her being blood-marks on her face and
hands and throat.  Otherwise, she was calm and unruffled, as when earlier she
stood aside for him to pass in through the narrow iron door.

     CHAPTER XIX--AN ENEMY IN THE DARK

     Adam Salton went for a walk before returning to Lesser Hill; he felt that
it might be well, not only to steady his nerves, shaken by the horrible scene,
but to get his thoughts into some sort of order, so as to be ready to enter on
the matter with Sir Nathaniel.  He was a little embarrassed as to telling his
uncle, for affairs had so vastly progressed beyond his original view that he
felt a little doubtful as to what would be the old gentleman's attitude when he
should hear of the strange events for the first time.  Mr. Salton would
certainly not be satisfied at being treated as an outsider with regard to such
things, most of which had points of contact with the inmates of his own house.
It was with an immense sense of relief that Adam heard that his uncle had
telegraphed to the housekeeper that he was detained by business at Walsall,
where he would remain for the night; and that he would be back in the morning in
time for lunch.
     When Adam got home after his walk, he found Sir Nathaniel just going to
bed.  He did not say anything to him then of what had happened, but contented
himself with arranging that they would walk together in the early morning, as he
had much to say that would require serious attention.
     Strangely enough he slept well, and awoke at dawn with his mind clear and
his nerves in their usual unshaken condition.  The maid brought up, with his
early morning cup of tea, a note which had been found in the letter-box.  It was
from Lady Arabella, and was evidently intended to put him on his guard as to
what he should say about the previous evening.
     He read it over carefully several times, before he was satisfied that he
had taken in its full import.
      "DEAR MR. SALTON,
     "I cannot go to bed until I have written to you, so you must forgive me if
I disturb you, and at an unseemly time.  Indeed, you must also forgive me if, in
trying to do what is right, I err in saying too much or too little.  The fact is
that I am quite upset and unnerved by all that has happened in this terrible
night.  I find it difficult even to write; my hands shake so that they are not
under control, and I am trembling all over with memory of the horrors we saw
enacted before our eyes.  I am grieved beyond measure that I should be, however
remotely, a cause of this horror coming on you. Forgive me if you can, and do
not think too hardly of me.  This I ask with confidence, for since we shared
together the danger--the very pangs--of death, I feel that we should be to one
another something more than mere friends, that I may lean on you and trust you,
assured that your sympathy and pity are for me.  You really must let me thank
you for the friendliness, the help, the confidence, the real aid at a time of
deadly danger and deadly fear which you showed me.  That awful man--I shall see
him for ever in my dreams.  His black, malignant face will shut out all memory
of sunshine and happiness.  I shall eternally see his evil eyes as he threw
himself into that well-hole in a vain effort to escape from the consequences of
his own misdoing.  The more I think of it, the more apparent it seems to me that
he had premeditated the whole thing--of course, except his own horrible death.
     "Perhaps you have noticed a fur collar I occasionally wear.  It is one of
my most valued treasures--an ermine collar studded with emeralds.  I had often
seen the nigger's eyes gleam covetously when he looked at it.  Unhappily, I wore
it yesterday.  That may have been the cause that lured the poor man to his doom.
 On the very brink of the abyss he tore the collar from my neck--that was the
last I saw of him.  When he sank into the hole, I was rushing to the iron door,
which I pulled behind me.  When I heard that soul- sickening yell, which marked
his disappearance in the chasm, I was more glad than I can say that my eyes were
spared the pain and horror which my ears had to endure.
     "When I tore myself out of the negro's grasp as he sank into the well-hole;
I realised what freedom meant.  Freedom!  Freedom!  Not only from that noisome
prison-house, which has now such a memory, but from the more noisome embrace of
that hideous monster.  Whilst I live, I shall always thank you for my freedom.
A woman must sometimes express her gratitude; otherwise it becomes too great to
bear.  I am not a sentimental girl, who merely likes to thank a man; I am a
woman who knows all, of bad as well as good, that life can give.  I have known
what it is to love and to lose.  But you must not let me bring any unhappiness
into your life.  I must live on--as I have lived--alone, and, in addition, bear
with other woes the memory of this latest insult and horror.  In the meantime, I
must get away as quickly as possible from Diana's Grove.  In the morning I shall
go up to town, where I shall remain for a week--I cannot stay longer, as
business affairs demand my presence here.  I think, however, that a week in the
rush of busy London, surrounded with multitudes of commonplace people, will help
to soften--I cannot expect total obliteration--the terrible images of the bygone
night. When I can sleep easily--which will be, I hope, after a day or two-- I
shall be fit to return home and take up again the burden which will, I suppose,
always be with me.
     "I shall be most happy to see you on my return--or earlier, if my good
fortune sends you on any errand to London.  I shall stay at the Mayfair Hotel.
In that busy spot we may forget some of the dangers and horrors we have shared
together.  Adieu, and thank you, again and again, for all your kindness and
consideration to me.
     "ARABELLA MARSH."
      Adam was surprised by this effusive epistle, but he determined to say
nothing of it to Sir Nathaniel until he should have thought it well over.  When
Adam met Sir Nathaniel at breakfast, he was glad that he had taken time to turn
things over in his mind.  The result had been that not only was he familiar with
the facts in all their bearings, but he had already so far differentiated them
that he was able to arrange them in his own mind according to their values.
Breakfast had been a silent function, so it did not interfere in any way with
the process of thought.
     So soon as the door was closed, Sir Nathaniel began:
     "I see, Adam, that something has occurred, and that you have much to tell
me."
     "That is so, sir.  I suppose I had better begin by telling you all I
know--all that has happened since I left you yesterday?"
     Accordingly Adam gave him details of all that had happened during the
previous evening.  He confined himself rigidly to the narration of
circumstances, taking care not to colour events by any comment of his own, or
any opinion of the meaning of things which he did not fully understand.  At
first, Sir Nathaniel seemed disposed to ask questions, but shortly gave this up
when he recognised that the narration was concise and self-explanatory.
Thenceforth, he contented himself with quick looks and glances, easily
interpreted, or by some acquiescent motions of his hands, when such could be
convenient, to emphasise his idea of the correctness of any inference.  Until
Adam ceased speaking, having evidently come to an end of what he had to say with
regard to this section of his story, the elder man made no comment whatever.
Even when Adam took from his pocket Lady Arabella's letter, with the manifest
intention of reading it, he did not make any comment.  Finally, when Adam folded
up the letter and put it, in its envelope, back in his pocket, as an intimation
that he had now quite finished, the old diplomatist carefully made a few notes
in his pocket-book.
     "Your narrative, my dear Adam, is altogether admirable.  I think I may now
take it that we are both well versed in the actual facts, and that our
conference had better take the shape of a mutual exchange of ideas.  Let us both
ask questions as they may arise; and I do not doubt that we shall arrive at some
enlightening conclusions."
     "Will you kindly begin, sir?  I do not doubt that, with your longer
experience, you will be able to dissipate some of the fog which envelops certain
of the things which we have to consider."
     "I hope so, my dear boy.  For a beginning, then, let me say that Lady
Arabella's letter makes clear some things which she intended-- and also some
things which she did not intend.  But, before I begin to draw deductions, let me
ask you a few questions.  Adam, are you heart-whole, quite heart-whole, in the
matter of Lady Arabella?"
     His companion answered at once, each looking the other straight in the eyes
during question and answer.
     "Lady Arabella, sir, is a charming woman, and I should have deemed it a
privilege to meet her--to talk to her--even--since I am in the confessional--to
flirt a little with her.  But if you mean to ask if my affections are in any way
engaged, I can emphatically answer 'No!'--as indeed you will understand when
presently I give you the reason.  Apart from that, there are the unpleasant
details we discussed the other day."
     "Could you--would you mind giving me the reason now?  It will help us to
understand what is before us, in the way of difficulty."
     "Certainly, sir.  My reason, on which I can fully depend, is that I love
another woman!"
     "That clinches it.  May I offer my good wishes, and, I hope, my
congratulations?"
     "I am proud of your good wishes, sir, and I thank you for them.  But it is
too soon for congratulations--the lady does not even know my hopes yet.  Indeed,
I hardly knew them myself, as definite, till this moment."
     "I take it then, Adam, that at the right time I may be allowed to know who
the lady is?"
     Adam laughed a low, sweet laugh, such as ripples from a happy heart.
     "There need not be an hour's, a minute's delay.  I shall be glad to share
my secret with you, sir.  The lady, sir, whom I am so happy as to love, and in
whom my dreams of life-long happiness are centred, is Mimi Watford!"
     "Then, my dear Adam, I need not wait to offer congratulations.  She is
indeed a very charming young lady.  I do not think I ever saw a girl who united
in such perfection the qualities of strength of character and sweetness of
disposition.  With all my heart, I congratulate you.  Then I may take it that my
question as to your heart-wholeness is answered in the affirmative?"
     "Yes; and now, sir, may I ask in turn why the question?"
     "Certainly!  I asked because it seems to me that we are coming to a point
where my questions might be painful to you."
     "It is not merely that I love Mimi, but I have reason to look on Lady
Arabella as her enemy," Adam continued.
     "Her enemy?"
     "Yes.  A rank and unscrupulous enemy who is bent on her destruction."
     Sir Nathaniel went to the door, looked outside it and returned, locking it
carefully behind him.

     CHAPTER XX--METABOLISM

     "Am I looking grave?" asked Sir Nathaniel inconsequently when he re-
entered the room.
     "You certainly are, sir."
     "We little thought when first we met that we should be drawn into such a
vortex.  Already we are mixed up in robbery, and probably murder, but--a
thousand times worse than all the crimes in the calendar--in an affair of
ghastly mystery which has no bottom and no end--with forces of the most
unnerving kind, which had their origin in an age when the world was different
from the world which we know. We are going back to the origin of
superstition--to an age when dragons tore each other in their slime.  We must
fear nothing--no conclusion, however improbable, almost impossible it may be.
Life and death is hanging on our judgment, not only for ourselves, but for
others whom we love.  Remember, I count on you as I hope you count on me."
     "I do, with all confidence."
     "Then," said Sir Nathaniel, "let us think justly and boldly and fear
nothing, however terrifying it may seem.  I suppose I am to take as exact in
every detail your account of all the strange things which happened whilst you
were in Diana's Grove?"
     "So far as I know, yes.  Of course I may be mistaken in recollection of
some detail or another, but I am certain that in the main what I have said is
correct."
     "You feel sure that you saw Lady Arabella seize the negro round the neck,
and drag him down with her into the hole?"
     "Absolutely certain, sir, otherwise I should have gone to her assistance."
     "We have, then, an account of what happened from an eye-witness whom we
trust--that is yourself.  We have also another account, written by Lady Arabella
under her own hand.  These two accounts do not agree.  Therefore we must take it
that one of the two is lying."
     "Apparently, sir."
     "And that Lady Arabella is the liar!"
     "Apparently--as I am not."
     "We must, therefore, try to find a reason for her lying.  She has nothing
to fear from Oolanga, who is dead.  Therefore the only reason which could
actuate her would be to convince someone else that she was blameless.  This
'someone' could not be you, for you had the evidence of your own eyes.  There
was no one else present; therefore it must have been an absent person."
     "That seems beyond dispute, sir."
     "There is only one other person whose good opinion she could wish to
keep--Edgar Caswall.  He is the only one who fills the bill.  Her lies point to
other things besides the death of the African.  She evidently wanted it to be
accepted that his falling into the well was his own act.  I cannot suppose that
she expected to convince you, the eye-witness; but if she wished later on to
spread the story, it was wise of her to try to get your acceptance of it."
     "That is so!"
     "Then there were other matters of untruth.  That, for instance, of the
ermine collar embroidered with emeralds.  If an understandable reason be
required for this, it would be to draw attention away from the green lights
which were seen in the room, and especially in the well-hole.  Any unprejudiced
person would accept the green lights to be the eyes of a great snake, such as
tradition pointed to living in the well-hole.  In fine, therefore, Lady Arabella
wanted the general belief to be that there was no snake of the kind in Diana's
Grove. For my own part, I don't believe in a partial liar--this art does not
deal in veneer; a liar is a liar right through.  Self-interest may prompt
falsity of the tongue; but if one prove to be a liar, nothing that he says can
ever be believed.  This leads us to the conclusion that because she said or
inferred that there was no snake, we should look for one--and expect to find it,
too.
     "Now let me digress.  I live, and have for many years lived, in Derbyshire,
a county more celebrated for its caves than any other county in England.  I have
been through them all, and am familiar with every turn of them; as also with
other great caves in Kentucky, in France, in Germany, and a host of other
places--in many of these are tremendously deep caves of narrow aperture, which
are valued by intrepid explorers, who descend narrow gullets of abysmal
depth--and sometimes never return.  In many of the caverns in the Peak I am
convinced that some of the smaller passages were used in primeval times as the
lairs of some of the great serpents of legend and tradition.  It may have been
that such caverns were formed in the usual geologic way--bubbles or flaws in the
earth's crust--which were later used by the monsters of the period of the young
world. It may have been, of course, that some of them were worn originally by
water; but in time they all found a use when suitable for living monsters.
     "This brings us to another point, more difficult to accept and understand
than any other requiring belief in a base not usually accepted, or indeed
entered on--whether such abnormal growths could have ever changed in their
nature.  Some day the study of metabolism may progress so far as to enable us to
accept structural changes proceeding from an intellectual or moral base.  We may
lean towards a belief that great animal strength may be a sound base for changes
of all sorts.  If this be so, what could be a more fitting subject than primeval
monsters whose strength was such as to allow a survival of thousands of years?
We do not know yet if brain can increase and develop independently of other
parts of the living structure.
     "After all, the mediaeval belief in the Philosopher's Stone which could
transmute metals, has its counterpart in the accepted theory of metabolism which
changes living tissue.  In an age of investigation like our own, when we are
returning to science as the base of wonders--almost of miracles--we should be
slow to refuse to accept facts, however impossible they may seem to be.
     "Let us suppose a monster of the early days of the world--a dragon of the
prime--of vast age running into thousands of years, to whom had been conveyed in
some way--it matters not--a brain just sufficient for the beginning of growth.
Suppose the monster to be of incalculable size and of a strength quite
abnormal--a veritable incarnation of animal strength.  Suppose this animal is
allowed to remain in one place, thus being removed from accidents of interrupted
development; might not, would not this creature, in process of time--ages, if
necessary--have that rudimentary intelligence developed?  There is no
impossibility in this; it is only the natural process of evolution.  In the
beginning, the instincts of animals are confined to alimentation,
self-protection, and the multiplication of their species.  As time goes on and
the needs of life become more complex, power follows need.  We have been long
accustomed to consider growth as applied almost exclusively to size in its
various aspects.  But Nature, who has no doctrinaire ideas, may equally apply it
to concentration.  A developing thing may expand in any given way or form.  Now,
it is a scientific law that increase implies gain and loss of various kinds;
what a thing gains in one direction it may lose in another.  May it not be that
Mother Nature may deliberately encourage decrease as well as increase--that it
may be an axiom that what is gained in concentration is lost in size?  Take, for
instance, monsters that tradition has accepted and localised, such as the Worm
of Lambton or that of Spindleston Heugh.  If such a creature were, by its own
process of metabolism, to change much of its bulk for intellectual growth, we
should at once arrive at a new class of creature--more dangerous, perhaps, than
the world has ever had any experience of--a force which can think, which has no
soul and no morals, and therefore no acceptance of responsibility.  A snake
would be a good illustration of this, for it is cold-blooded, and therefore
removed from the temptations which often weaken or restrict warm-blooded
creatures.  If, for instance, the Worm of Lambton--if such ever existed--were
guided to its own ends by an organised intelligence capable of expansion, what
form of creature could we imagine which would equal it in potentialities of
evil?  Why, such a being would devastate a whole country.  Now, all these things
require much thought, and we want to apply the knowledge usefully, and we should
therefore be exact.  Would it not be well to resume the subject later in the
day?"
     "I quite agree, sir.  I am in a whirl already; and want to attend carefully
to what you say; so that I may try to digest it."
     Both men seemed fresher and better for the "easy," and when they met in the
afternoon each of them had something to contribute to the general stock of
information.  Adam, who was by nature of a more militant disposition than his
elderly friend, was glad to see that the conference at once assumed a practical
trend.  Sir Nathaniel recognised this, and, like an old diplomatist, turned it
to present use.
     "Tell me now, Adam, what is the outcome, in your own mind, of our
conversation?"
     "That the whole difficulty already assumes practical shape; but with added
dangers, that at first I did not imagine."
     "What is the practical shape, and what are the added dangers?  I am not
disputing, but only trying to clear my own ideas by the consideration of
yours--"
     So Adam went on:
     "In the past, in the early days of the world, there were monsters who were
so vast that they could exist for thousands of years.  Some of them must have
overlapped the Christian era.  They may have progressed intellectually in
process of time.  If they had in any way so progressed, or even got the most
rudimentary form of brain, they would be the most dangerous things that ever
were in the world. Tradition says that one of these monsters lived in the Marsh
of the East, and came up to a cave in Diana's Grove, which was also called the
Lair of the White Worm.  Such creatures may have grown down as well as up.  They
MAY have grown into, or something like, human beings.  Lady Arabella March is of
snake nature.  She has committed crimes to our knowledge.  She retains something
of the vast strength of her primal being--can see in the dark--has the eyes of a
snake. She used the nigger, and then dragged him through the snake's hole down
to the swamp; she is intent on evil, and hates some one we love.  Result. . . "
     "Yes, the result?"
     "First, that Mimi Watford should be taken away at once--then--"
     "Yes?"
     "The monster must be destroyed."
     "Bravo!  That is a true and fearless conclusion.  At whatever cost, it must
be carried out."
     "At once?"
     "Soon, at all events.  That creature's very existence is a danger. Her
presence in this neighbourhood makes the danger immediate."
     As he spoke, Sir Nathaniel's mouth hardened and his eyebrows came down till
they met.  There was no doubting his concurrence in the resolution, or his
readiness to help in carrying it out.  But he was an elderly man with much
experience and knowledge of law and diplomacy.  It seemed to him to be a stern
duty to prevent anything irrevocable taking place till it had been thought out
and all was ready.  There were all sorts of legal cruxes to be thought out, not
only regarding the taking of life, even of a monstrosity in human form, but also
of property.  Lady Arabella, be she woman or snake or devil, owned the ground
she moved in, according to British law, and the law is jealous and swift to
avenge wrongs done within its ken. All such difficulties should be--must
be--avoided for Mr. Salton's sake, for Adam's own sake, and, most of all, for
Mimi Watford's sake.
     Before he spoke again, Sir Nathaniel had made up his mind that he must try
to postpone decisive action until the circumstances on which they
depended--which, after all, were only problematical-- should have been tested
satisfactorily, one way or another.  When he did speak, Adam at first thought
that his friend was wavering in his intention, or "funking" the responsibility.
However, his respect for Sir Nathaniel was so great that he would not act, or
even come to a conclusion on a vital point, without his sanction.
     He came close and whispered in his ear:
     "We will prepare our plans to combat and destroy this horrible menace,
after we have cleared up some of the more baffling points. Meanwhile, we must
wait for the night--I hear my uncle's footsteps echoing down the hall."
     Sir Nathaniel nodded his approval.

     CHAPTER XXI--GREEN LIGHT

     When old Mr. Salton had retired for the night, Adam and Sir Nathaniel
returned to the study.  Things went with great regularity at Lesser Hill, so
they knew that there would be no interruption to their talk.
     When their cigars were lighted, Sir Nathaniel began.
     "I hope, Adam, that you do not think me either slack or changeable of
purpose.  I mean to go through this business to the bitter end-- whatever it may
be.  Be satisfied that my first care is, and shall be, the protection of Mimi
Watford.  To that I am pledged; my dear boy, we who are interested are all in
the same danger.  That semi- human monster out of the pit hates and means to
destroy us all--you and me certainly, and probably your uncle.  I wanted
especially to talk with you to-night, for I cannot help thinking that the time
is fast coming--if it has not come already--when we must take your uncle into
our confidence.  It was one thing when fancied evils threatened, but now he is
probably marked for death, and it is only right that he should know all."
     "I am with you, sir.  Things have changed since we agreed to keep him out
of the trouble.  Now we dare not; consideration for his feelings might cost his
life.  It is a duty--and no light or pleasant one, either.  I have not a shadow
of doubt that he will want to be one with us in this.  But remember, we are his
guests; his name, his honour, have to be thought of as well as his safety."
     "All shall be as you wish, Adam.  And now as to what we are to do? We
cannot murder Lady Arabella off-hand.  Therefore we shall have to put things in
order for the killing, and in such a way that we cannot be taxed with a crime."
     "It seems to me, sir, that we are in an exceedingly tight place. Our first
difficulty is to know where to begin.  I never thought this fighting an
antediluvian monster would be such a complicated job.  This one is a woman, with
all a woman's wit, combined with the heartlessness of a COCOTTE.  She has the
strength and impregnability of a diplodocus.  We may be sure that in the fight
that is before us there will be no semblance of fair-play.  Also that our
unscrupulous opponent will not betray herself!"
     "That is so--but being feminine, she will probably over-reach herself.
Now, Adam, it strikes me that, as we have to protect ourselves and others
against feminine nature, our strong game will be to play our masculine against
her feminine.  Perhaps we had better sleep on it.  She is a thing of the night;
and the night may give us some ideas."
     So they both turned in.
     Adam knocked at Sir Nathaniel's door in the grey of the morning, and, on
being bidden, came into the room.  He had several letters in his hand.  Sir
Nathaniel sat up in bed.
     "Well!"
     "I should like to read you a few letters, but, of course, I shall not send
them unless you approve.  In fact"--with a smile and a blush--"there are several
things which I want to do; but I hold my hand and my tongue till I have your
approval."
     "Go on!" said the other kindly.  "Tell me all, and count at any rate on my
sympathy, and on my approval and help if I can see my way."
     Accordingly Adam proceeded:
     "When I told you the conclusions at which I had arrived, I put in the
foreground that Mimi Watford should, for the sake of her own safety, be
removed--and that the monster which had wrought all the harm should be
destroyed."
     "Yes, that is so."
     "To carry this into practice, sir, one preliminary is required-- unless
harm of another kind is to be faced.  Mimi should have some protector whom all
the world would recognise.  The only form recognised by convention is marriage!"
     Sir Nathaniel smiled in a fatherly way.
     "To marry, a husband is required.  And that husband should be you."
     "Yes, yes."
     "And the marriage should be immediate and secret--or, at least, not spoken
of outside ourselves.  Would the young lady be agreeable to that proceeding?"
     "I do not know, sir!"
     "Then how are we to proceed?"
     "I suppose that we--or one of us--must ask her."
     "Is this a sudden idea, Adam, a sudden resolution?"
     "A sudden resolution, sir, but not a sudden idea.  If she agrees, all is
well and good.  The sequence is obvious."
     "And it is to be kept a secret amongst ourselves?"
     "I want no secret, sir, except for Mimi's good.  For myself, I should like
to shout it from the house-tops!  But we must be discreet; untimely knowledge to
our enemy might work incalculable harm."
     "And how would you suggest, Adam, that we could combine the momentous
question with secrecy?"
     Adam grew red and moved uneasily.
     "Someone must ask her--as soon as possible!"
     "And that someone?"
     "I thought that you, sir, would be so good!"
     "God bless my soul!  This is a new kind of duty to take on--at my time of
life.  Adam, I hope you know that you can count on me to help in any way I can!"
     "I have already counted on you, sir, when I ventured to make such a
suggestion.  I can only ask," he added, "that you will be more than ever kind to
me--to us--and look on the painful duty as a voluntary act of grace, prompted by
kindness and affection."
     "Painful duty!"
     "Yes," said Adam boldly.  "Painful to you, though to me it would be all
joyful."
     "It is a strange job for an early morning!  Well, we all live and learn.  I
suppose the sooner I go the better.  You had better write a line for me to take
with me.  For, you see, this is to be a somewhat unusual transaction, and it may
be embarrassing to the lady, even to myself.  So we ought to have some sort of
warrant, something to show that we have been mindful of her feelings.  It will
not do to take acquiescence for granted--although we act for her good."
     "Sir Nathaniel, you are a true friend; I am sure that both Mimi and I shall
be grateful to you for all our lives--however long they may be!"
     So the two talked it over and agreed as to points to be borne in mind by
the ambassador.  It was striking ten when Sir Nathaniel left the house, Adam
seeing him quietly off.
     As the young man followed him with wistful eyes--almost jealous of the
privilege which his kind deed was about to bring him--he felt that his own heart
was in his friend's breast.
     The memory of that morning was like a dream to all those concerned in it.
Sir Nathaniel had a confused recollection of detail and sequence, though the
main facts stood out in his memory boldly and clearly.  Adam Salton's
recollection was of an illimitable wait, filled with anxiety, hope, and chagrin,
all dominated by a sense of the slow passage of time and accompanied by vague
fears.  Mimi could not for a long time think at all, or recollect anything,
except that Adam loved her and was saving her from a terrible danger.  When she
had time to think, later on, she wondered when she had any ignorance of the fact
that Adam loved her, and that she loved him with all her heart.  Everything,
every recollection however small, every feeling, seemed to fit into those
elemental facts as though they had all been moulded together.  The main and
crowning recollection was her saying goodbye to Sir Nathaniel, and entrusting to
him loving messages, straight from her heart, to Adam Salton, and of his bearing
when-- with an impulse which she could not check--she put her lips to his and
kissed him.  Later, when she was alone and had time to think, it was a passing
grief to her that she would have to be silent, for a time, to Lilla on the happy
events of that strange mission.
     She had, of course, agreed to keep all secret until Adam should give her
leave to speak.
     The advice and assistance of Sir Nathaniel was a great help to Adam in
carrying out his idea of marrying Mimi Watford without publicity. He went with
him to London, and, with his influence, the young man obtained the license of
the Archbishop of Canterbury for a private marriage.  Sir Nathaniel then
persuaded old Mr. Salton to allow his nephew to spend a few weeks with him at
Doom Tower, and it was here that Mimi became Adam's wife.  But that was only the
first step in their plans; before going further, however, Adam took his bride
off to the Isle of Man.  He wished to place a stretch of sea between Mimi and
the White Worm, while things matured.  On their return, Sir Nathaniel met them
and drove them at once to Doom, taking care to avoid any one that he knew on the
journey.
     Sir Nathaniel had taken care to have the doors and windows shut and
locked--all but the door used for their entry.  The shutters were up and the
blinds down.  Moreover, heavy curtains were drawn across the windows.  When Adam
commented on this, Sir Nathaniel said in a whisper:
     "Wait till we are alone, and I'll tell you why this is done; in the
meantime not a word or a sign.  You will approve when we have had a talk
together."
     They said no more on the subject till after dinner, when they were
ensconced in Sir Nathaniel's study, which was on the top storey. Doom Tower was
a lofty structure, situated on an eminence high up in the Peak.  The top
commanded a wide prospect, ranging from the hills above the Ribble to the near
side of the Brow, which marked the northern bound of ancient Mercia.  It was of
the early Norman period, less than a century younger than Castra Regis.  The
windows of the study were barred and locked, and heavy dark curtains closed them
in.  When this was done not a gleam of light from the tower could be seen from
outside.
     When they were alone, Sir Nathaniel explained that he had taken his old
friend, Mr. Salton, into full confidence, and that in future all would work
together.
     "It is important for you to be extremely careful.  In spite of the fact
that our marriage was kept secret, as also your temporary absence, both are
known."
     "How?  To whom?"
     "How, I know not; but I am beginning to have an idea."
     "To her?" asked Adam, in momentary consternation.
     Sir Nathaniel shivered perceptibly.
     "The White Worm--yes!"
     Adam noticed that from now on, his friend never spoke of Lady Arabella
otherwise, except when he wished to divert