, swearing unheard, bent his head to the lashing rain.

"Are we ... right ... think you? ... long way ... very dark egad..."

"Dark sir, never knowed it darker and the rain--may the dev..."

"Are we nigh the place Zeb d'ye think, we should be ... by now----"

"Not so fur your hon ... a bye-road hereabouts if 'twarn't dark, with
ten thousand..."

In a while as they splashed on through the gloom the Major felt a hand
on his arm.

"By your left, sir ... bye-road ... can't see on account o' dark, may
the foul fiend ... by your left, so!" Thus through mud and rain and
buffeting wind they rode until at word of the Sergeant they dismounted.

"Must hide the horses, sir," said he in the Major's ear. "I know a
snug place hard by, wait you here sir ... some shelter under the hedge
... never saw such a plaguy night, may all the foul----" And the
Sergeant was gone, venting curses at every step. Very soon he was back
again and the Major stumbled after him across an unseen, wind-swept
expanse until looming blacker than the dark, they saw the ruin of the
haunted mill. Inside, sheltered from rain and wind the Major unloosed
his heavy coat and took from under his arm a certain knobby bludgeon
and twirled it in the dark while Sergeant Zebedee, hard by, struck
flint and steel, but the tinder was damp and refused to burn.

"Is a light necessary Zeb--if any should observe----"

"Why sir, like as not they'd think 'twas ghosts, d'ye see. And 'tis as
well to survey field of operations, wherefore I brought a lanthorn
and----" The Major reached out and caught his arm.

"Hark!" said he.

Above and around them were shrieks and howlings, timbers creaked and
groaned and the whole ruined fabric quivered, ever and anon, to the
fierce buffets of the wind, while faint and far was an ever-recurrent
roll and rumble of thunder.

"Storm's a-waxing sir ... can't last, I..." Borne on the wind above
the tempest came a faint hail. "Zounds, they're close on us!"
exclaimed the Sergeant. "This way, sir, keep close, catch the tail o'
my coat." Thus they stumbled on through the pitchy dark, found a wall,
followed it, turned a corner, brought up against another wall and so
stood waiting with ears on the stretch.

And soon amid this confusion of sounds was a stamping of horse, the
tread of feet and presently voices within the mill itself; one in
especial that poured out a flood of oaths and fierce invective upon
rain and wind and all things in