Harry lay low in the thicket, awaiting the departure of the vessel or
the arrival of darkness. On the deck there was no sign of weighing
anchor. As night came, the vessel's lights were slung. The sky was
partly clear in the west, and stars appeared in that direction, but
the east was overcast, so that the rising moon was hid. The atmosphere
grew colder.

When Harry could make out nothing of the vessel on the dark water,
save the lights that glowed like low-placed stars, he crawled from the
bushes and up the bank to the terrace. He then rose and proceeded,
with the aid of his stick, aching from having so long maintained a
cramped position, and from the suddenly increased cold. Before him, as
he continued to ascend, rose the house, darkness outlined against
darkness. No sound came from it, no window was lighted. This meant
that the British officers had left, for their presence would have been
marked by plenitude of light and by noise of merriment. Harry stopped
on the terrace, and stood in doubt how to proceed. What had been
thought of his disappearance? Where would he be supposed to have gone?
Had provision been made for his possible return? Perhaps he should
find a guiding light in some window on the other side of the house;
perhaps a servant remained alert for his knock on the door. His only
course was to investigate, unless he would undergo a night of much
discomfort.

As he was about to approach the house, he was checked by a sight so
vaguely outlined that it might be rather of his imagination than of
reality, and which added a momentary shiver of a keener sort than he
already underwent from the weather. A dark cloaked and hooded figure
stood by the balustrade that ran along the roof-top. As Peyton looked,
his hand involuntarily clasping his sword-hilt, and the stories of the
ghosts that haunted this old mansion shot through his mind, the figure
seemed to descend through the very roof, as a stage ghost is lowered
through a trap. He continued to stare at the spot where it had stood,
but nothing reappeared against the backing of black cloud. Wondering
much, Harry presently went on towards the house, turned the southwest
corner, and skirted the south front as far as to the little porch in
its middle. Intending to reconnoitre all sides of the house before he
should try one of the doors, he was passing on, after a glance at the
south door lost in the blacker shadows of the porch, when suddenly the
fan-window over the