said, thickly. "I cut my wrist on that damned
glass, and I'm blood all over, and my head's wrong, somehow." His
voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble, but he held one hand
up into the circle of light, and I saw that his cuff was soaked with
blood and his hand streaked with it.

"Come along, then," said Godfrey peremptorily. "You're right--that cut
must be attended to," and he started toward the house.

"Wait!" Swain called after him, with unexpected vigour. "We must take
down the ladders. We mustn't leave them here."

"Why not?"

"If they're found, they'll suspect--they'll know ..." He stopped,
stammering, and again his voice trailed away into a mumble, as though
beyond his control.

Godfrey looked at him for a moment, and I could guess at the surprise
and suspicion in his eyes. I myself was ill at ease, for there was
something in Swain's face--a sort of vacant horror and dumb
shrinking--that filled me with a vague repulsion. And then to see his
jaw working, as he tried to form articulate words and could not, sent
a shiver over my scalp.

"Very well," Godfrey agreed, at last. "We'll take the ladders, since
you think it so important. You take that one, Lester, and I'll take
this."

I stooped to raise the ladder to my shoulder, when suddenly, cutting
the darkness like a knife, came a scream so piercing, so vibrant with
fear, that I stood there crouching, every muscle rigid. Again the
scream came, more poignant, more terrible, wrung from a woman's throat
by the last extremity of horror; and then a silence sickening and
awful. What was happening in that silence?

I stood erect, gaping, suffocated, rising as from a long submersion.
Godfrey's finger had slipped from the button of his torch, and we were
in darkness; but suddenly a dim figure hurled itself past us, up the
ladder.

With a low cry, Godfrey snatched at it, but his hand clutched only the
empty air. The next instant, the figure poised itself on the coping of
the wall and then plunged forward out of sight. I heard the crash of
breaking branches, a scramble, a patter of feet, and all was still.

"It's Swain!" said Godfrey, hoarsely; "and that's a twelve-foot drop!
Why, the man's mad! Hand me that ladder, Lester!" he added, for he
was already at the top of the wall.

I lifted it, as I had done once before that night, and saw Godfrey
slide it over the wall.

"Come on!" he said. "We must save him if we can!" and he, too,
disappeared.

The ne