tamorphosis in his personal appearance was all he needed to put it
into execution.

Darker and darker had grown the lowering skies, and now the wind began
to moan dismally through the tree trunks. Anything more drear and
depressing than the brooding gloom of the haunted wood could hardly be
imagined. The keeper, however, was of the dogged order of rustic, and
doubtless lacking in imagination, for he remained patiently at his
self-appointed post. Then, suddenly, he started to his feet and faced
quickly round.

A sight met his gaze, transfixing him with terror, seeming to turn him
to stone. Reared above the undergrowth, an awful head, covered with
dust, and bristling with brambles--a black face with lolling, swollen
tongue, and huge eyeballs protruding from their sockets rolling their
vivid whites in most hideous fashion--yes, and there, round the neck, a
strand of cord, while from the throat of this horrifying apparition
there proceeded the most hollow, half-strangled moan that ever curdled
mortal blood. For a moment the appalled keeper stood with livid
countenance, and his knees knocking together--then with a wild hoarse
cry, and dropping his gun--he turned and fled away down the ride of the
wood as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Come, Haviland, we'll go now," chuckled the ghost, dropping down into
the undergrowth again. But Haviland made no reply, being powerless
alike for speech or movement. He lay there gasping, choking back with
superhuman effort the scarcely repressible roars of laughter that he
dared not let out.

"Come quick. We be off," urged the Zulu boy. "Praps he come back."

"Not he," gurgled Haviland faintly. "Oh Cetchy, that's about the most
deadly thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, it'll be the death of me."
Then recovering himself with a mighty effort:

"Come along, Cetchy. You're right, by Jingo! We'll have to put our
best leg forward as it is. Oh, but we mustn't think about this or it'll
kill me again."

Cautiously and in silence, and ever keeping a bright look-out lest
mayhap their dupe should recover from his scare and return, they made
their way out of the haunted wood, then across country at a hard
swinging trot, and the far-away roofs of Saint Kirwin's seemed painfully
remote.

"I say, Cetchy," said Haviland as they sat beneath a hedge for a brief
but necessary breather. "Supposing the chap had let off his gun at you?
Eh? We never thought of that."

"He not shoot--he