one from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or
railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some
rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they
drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle
stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view
into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full
on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he
hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled
together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in
old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted
round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle.
Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over
the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose
contents had evidently run out into the snow.

"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade.

Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart.

"No," said he, "dead."

McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!"
he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door.

There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a
faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was
heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth
chattering.

"Did ye hear that, Doyne?"

[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.]

"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor.

Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the
door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind
entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and
found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with
poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some
broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society
almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table.

"We must bring him in," said he.

They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip
the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more
intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's
forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and
after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to
straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which