ours ago.

Mr. Dalroyd sauntered on, past silent cottages, across a trim green and
so to the churchyard gate, beyond which the tombstones rose,
phantom-like beneath the moon. For a while he stood to contemplate
this quiet scene, then started and glanced up at the church tower as a
deep-toned bell began to chime the hour of midnight. One by one he
counted the deliberate strokes, waited until the last had boomed and
died away, then, opening the gate, stepped into the churchyard and
strolled on among the graves, his cane airily a-swing, following the
paved walk that led round the church. Thus he presently passed from
light into shadow, a gloom all the deeper by contrast with the moon's
bright splendour, a gloom in which carved headstone and sarcophagus
took on strange and unexpected shapes. Suddenly Mr. Dalroyd's cane
faltered in its airy swing, stopped, and he stood motionless, his body
rigid, his breath in check, his eyes wide and staring. Before him
loomed a great mausoleum, its pallid outline vague in the half-light,
but on this side the weatherworn marble was cracked and split and from
this yawning fissure a ghastly radiance streamed; then this unholy
light vanished and upon the stillness came a ghostly rustling, a soft
thud and the sound of heavy breathing. Mr. Dalroyd shrank cowering
into the deeper shadow of a buttress and dropping his cane upon the
grass groped for the hilt of his small-sword. Then, as he stared
unwinking, forth from the tomb a dim form wriggled, crouched awhile
fumbling, stood upright, and Mr. Dalroyd saw a vague head, awful and
shapeless and crowned with curving horns. This dreadful thing stood
awhile as if listening for distant sounds then took a stride forward,
floundered over a grave and cursed fluently. Mr. Dalroyd loosed rigid
fingers from his sword-hilt, picked up his cane and, keeping well in
the shadow, began to follow this strange figure; ghost-like it flitted
on among the tombs until, reaching the wall; it leapt nimbly over,
stood to listen and glance furtively about, then set off down the road
at a smart pace. Mr. Dalroyd, treading with infinite caution for the
night was very still, followed whither it led, viewing the shapeless
thing with gaze that never wavered. Thus, in a while, they reached a
grassy bye-lane flanked on the one side by a thick hedge and on the
other by a high wall. Here the figure paused and Mr. Dalroyd,
shrinking into the shadow of the hedge, saw it gl