luttering about my heart, a dread of entering the room, of allowing
the mulatto to come _behind me_.

Doubtless this was no more than a subconscious product of my
observations respecting his abnormal breadth of shoulder. But whatever
the origin of the impulse, I found myself unable to disobey it.
Therefore, I merely nodded, turned on my heel and went back to Smith's
room.

I closed the door, then turned to face Smith, who stood regarding me.

"Smith," I said, "that man sends cold water trickling down my spine!"

Still regarding me fixedly, my friend nodded his head.

"You are curiously sensitive to this sort of thing," he replied
slowly; "I have noticed it before as a useful capacity. I don't like
the look of the man myself. The fact that he has been in Van Roon's
employ for some years goes for nothing. We are neither of us likely to
forget Kwee, the Chinese servant of Sir Lionel Barton, and it is quite
possible that Fu-Manchu has corrupted this man as he corrupted the
other. It is quite possible...."

His voice trailed off into silence, and he stood looking across the
room with unseeing eyes, meditating deeply. It was quite dark, now,
outside, as I could see through the uncurtained window, which opened
upon the dreary expanse stretching out to haunted Sedgemoor. Two
candles were burning upon the dressing-table; they were but recently
lighted, and so intense was the stillness that I could distinctly hear
the spluttering of one of the wicks, which was damp. Without giving
the slightest warning of his intention, Smith suddenly made two
strides forward, stretched out his long arms, and snuffed the pair of
candles in a twinkling!

The room became plunged in impenetrable darkness.

"Not a word, Petrie!" whispered my companion.

I moved cautiously to join him, but as I did so, perceived that he was
moving, too. Vaguely, against the window I perceived him silhouetted.
He was looking out across the moor, and--

"See! see!" he hissed.

My heart thumping furiously in my breast, I bent over him; and for the
second time since our coming to Cragmire Tower, my thoughts flew to
"The Fenman."

There are shades in the fen; ghosts of women and men
Who have sinned and have died, but are living again.
O'er the waters they tread, with their lanterns of dread,
And they peer in the pools--in the pools of the dead....

A light was dancing out upon the moor, a witch-light that came and
went unaccountably, up and