the night before. It was long and narrow, filled with dark brown water,
in which the trees were dimly reflected. Not a ripple stirred its
surface.

"Watch!" he cried out, as I came up. "It's going to cross. It's bound
to betray itself. The water is its natural enemy, and we shall see the
direction."

And, even as he spoke, a thin line like the track of a water-spider,
shot swiftly across the shiny surface; there was a ghost of steam in the
air above; and immediately I became aware of an odour of burning.

Dr. Silence turned and shot a glance at me that made me think of
lightning. I began to shake all over.

"Quick!" he cried with excitement, "to the trail again! We must run
around. It's going to the house!"

The alarm in his voice quite terrified me. Without a false step I dashed
round the slippery banks and dived again at his heels into the sea of
bushes and tree trunks. We were now in the thick of the very dense belt
that ran around the outer edge of the plantation, and the field was
near; yet so dark was the tangle that it was some time before the first
shafts of white sunlight became visible. The doctor now ran in zigzags.
He was following something that dodged and doubled quite wonderfully,
yet had begun, I fancied, to move more slowly than before.

"Quick!" he cried. "In the light we shall lose it!"

I still saw nothing, heard nothing, caught no suggestion of a trail; yet
this man, guided by some interior divining that seemed infallible, made
no false turns, though how he failed to crash headlong into the trees
has remained a mystery to me ever since. And then, with a sudden rush,
we found ourselves on the skirts of the wood with the open field lying
in bright sunshine before our eyes.

"Too late!" I heard him cry, a note of anguish in his voice. "It's
out--and, by God, it's making for the house!"

I saw the Colonel standing in the field with his dogs where we had left
him. He was bending double, peering into the wood where he heard us
running, and he straightened up like a bent whip released. John Silence
dashed passed, calling him to follow.

"We shall lose the trail in the light," I heard him cry as he ran. "But
quick! We may yet get there in time!"

That wild rush across the open field, with the dogs at our heels,
leaping and barking, and the elderly Colonel behind us running as though
for his life, shall I ever forget it? Though I had only vague ideas of
the meaning of it all, I put my best foo