etrate to the heart of a very
captivating little mystery. But probably, I thought, it is quite simple
of solution, and the fact of the repairers and the landlord being in
evidence at one time, a natural coincidence.

"I dined well, and sallied forth about nine o'clock. It was a night
pregnant with possibilities. The lower strata of air were calm, but
overhead the wind went down the sea with a noise of baggage-wagons, and
there was an ominous hurrying and gathering together of forces under
the bellying standards of the clouds.

"As I went up the steps of the lonely building, the High Street seemed to
turn all its staring eyes of lamps in my direction. 'What a droll
fellow!' they appeared to be saying; 'and how will he look when he
reissues?'

"'There ain't nubbudy in that house,' croaked a small boy, who had paused
below, squinting up at me.

"'How do you know?' said I. 'Move on, my little man.'

"He went; and at once it occurred to me that, as no notice was taken of
my repeated knockings, I might as well try the handle. I did, found the
door unlatched, as it had been in the morning, pushed it open, entered,
and swung it to behind me.

"I found myself in the most profound darkness--that darkness, if I may
use the paradox, of a peopled desolation that men of but little nerve or
resolution find insupportable. To me, trained to a serenity of stoicism,
it could make no demoralizing appeal. I had out my matchbox, opened it at
leisure, and, while the whole vaulting blackness seemed to tick and
rustle with secret movement, took a half-dozen vestas into my hand,
struck one alight, and, by its dim radiance, made my way through the
building by the passages we had penetrated in the morning. If at all I
shrank or perspired on my spectral journey, I swear I was not
conscious of doing so.

"I came to the door of the cabin. All was black and silent.

"'Ah!' I thought, 'the rogue has played me false.'

"Not to subscribe to an uncertainty, I pushed at the door, saw only
swimming dead vacancy before me, and tripping at the instant on the sill,
stumbled crashing into the room below and slid my length on the floor.

"Now, I must tell you, it was here my heart gave its first somersault. I
had fallen, as I say, into a black vault of emptiness; yet, as I rose,
bruised and dazed, to my feet, there was the cabin all alight from a
great lanthorn that swung from the ceiling, and our friend of the morning
seated at a table, with a case-