have learnt no more of the business and would have escaped the
extraordinary peril which he was subsequently called upon to face.

But he _was_ addicted to his tobacco, and no sooner had he finished
his supper that night at Saxmundham than he called for a pipe. The
maidservant fetched a handful from a cupboard and spread them upon the
table, and amongst them was one plainly of Barbary manufacture. It had
a straight wooden stem painted with hieroglyphics in red and green
and a small reddish bowl of baked earth. Nine men out of ten would no
doubt have overlooked it, but Mitchelbourne was the tenth man. His
fancies were quick to kindle, and taking up the pipe he said in a
musing voice:

"Now, how in the world comes a Barbary pipe to travel so far over seas
and herd in the end with common clays in a little Suffolk village?"

He heard behind him the grating of a chair violently pushed back. The
pipe seemingly made its appeal to Mr. Lance also.

"Has it been smoked?" he asked in a grave low voice.

"The inside of the bowl is stained," said Mitchelbourne.

Mitchelbourne had been inclined to believe that he had seen last
evening the extremity of fear expressed in a man's face: he had now to
admit that he had been wrong. Mr. Lance's terror was a Circe to him
and sunk him into something grotesque and inhuman; he ran once or
twice in a little tripping, silly run backwards and forwards like an
animal trapped and out of its wits; and his face had the look of a
man suffering from a nausea; so that Mitchelbourne, seeing him, was
ashamed and hurt for their common nature.

"I must go," said Lance babbling his words. "I cannot stay. I must
go."

"To-night?" exclaimed Mitchelbourne. "Six yards from the door you will
be soaked!"

"Then there will be the fewer men abroad. I cannot sleep here! No,
though it rained pistols and bullets I must go." He went into
the passage, and calling his host secretly asked for his score.
Mitchelbourne made a further effort to detain him.

"Make an inquiry of the landlord first. It may be a mere shadow that
frightens you."

"Not a word, not a question," Lance implored. The mere suggestion
increased a panic which seemed incapable of increase. "And for the
shadow, why, that's true. The pipe's the shadow, and the shadow
frightens me. A shadow! Yes! A shadow is a horrible, threatning thing!
Show me a shadow cast by nothing and I am with you. But you might as
easily hold that this Barbary pipe floate