iet pluck that faces all things yet speaks little,
and John Silence from the intense mental grappling with this latest
manifestation of a profound problem that called for concentration of
thought rather than for any words.

There was really nothing to say. The facts were indisputable.

Colonel Wragge was the first to utter.

"My sister," he said briefly, and moved off. In the yard I heard him
sending the frightened servants about their business in an excellently
matter-of-fact voice, scolding some one roundly for making such a big
fire and letting the flues get over-heated, and paying no heed to the
stammering reply that no fire had been lit there for several days. Then
he dispatched a groom on horseback for the local doctor.

Then Dr. Silence turned and looked at me. The absolute control he
possessed, not only over the outward expression of emotion by gesture,
change of colour, light in the eyes, and so forth, but also, as I well
knew, over its very birth in his heart, the masklike face of the dead he
could assume at will, made it extremely difficult to know at any given
moment what was at work in his inner consciousness. But now, when he
turned and looked at me, there was no sphinx-expression there, but
rather the keen triumphant face of a man who had solved a dangerous and
complicated problem, and saw his way to a clean victory.

"_Now_ do you guess?" he asked quietly, as though it were the simplest
matter in the world, and ignorance were impossible.

I could only stare stupidly and remain silent. He glanced down at the
charred cauldron-lids, and traced a figure in the air with his finger.
But I was too excited, or too mortified, or still too dazed, perhaps, to
see what it was he outlined, or what it was he meant to convey. I could
only go on staring and shaking my puzzled head.

"A fire-elemental," he cried, "a fire-elemental of the most powerful and
malignant kind--"

"A what?" thundered the voice of Colonel Wragge behind us, having
returned suddenly and overheard.

"It's a fire-elemental," repeated Dr. Silence more calmly, but with a
note of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, "and a
fire-elemental enraged."

The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel--who had
never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably worked
up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to grapple
with--the Colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever seen on a
human co