hat there was no further sound from that deathly
still lagoon. Further calls would indicate that the outcome of the
affair was still in doubt, that there was still use to hope and
struggle. But there was a sense of dreadful finality in that unbroken
silence. The drama that had raged on that craggy shore was already
closed and done.

The sound had not been only a cry for help. It had been charged full of
the knowledge of impending death.

Motion came back to my body; and I sprang to the door. The interlude
of inactivity couldn't have been more than a second in duration. That
still, upper corridor was coming to life. Some one flashed on a light at
the end of the hall, and the door of the room just opposite mine flew
open. Van Hope, also in dressing-gown and slippers, stood on the
threshold.

He saw me, and pushed through into the hall. His face had an almost
incredible pallor in the soft light. In a moment his strong hand had
seized my arm.

"Good God, I didn't dream that, did I?" he cried. "I was dozing--you
heard it, didn't you----"

"Of course I heard----"

"Some one screamed for help! I heard the word plain. Good Lord, it's
last night's work done over----"

What he said thereafter I didn't hear. I was running down the hall
toward the stairway, and at the head of the stairs I almost collided
with Major Dell, just emerging from his room. He had evidently gone to
bed, and he had just had time to jerk on his trousers over his pajamas
and slip on a pair of romeos. The light was brighter here, and I got a
clear picture of his face.

It is a curious thing what details imprint themselves ineffaceably
on the memory in a moment of crisis. Perhaps--as in the world of
beasts--all the senses are incalculably sharpened, the thought processes
are clean-cut and infallible, and images have a clarity unequalled at
any other time. I got the idea that Dell had been terribly moved by that
scream in the darkness. His emotion had seemingly been so violent that
it gave the impression of no emotion. His face looked blank as a sheet
of white paper.

I rushed by him, and I heard him and Van Hope descending the stairs just
behind me. The hall was still lighted, but long shadows lay across the
broad veranda. Fargo, his book still in his hand, stood just outside the
door.

"What was it, Killdare?" he asked me. "I couldn't tell from where it
was----"

"The lagoon!" I answered. In the instant Van Hope and Dell caught up
with me, and