I clearly saw the figure of a man!

At first so whitely was his face lighted up by the moon that I had no
doubt of the figure being that of a man, but he remained so still,
seeming always to look in a fixed way in the same direction, that now,
momentarily I doubted, until a slight movement betrayed the fact that
my first impression had been correct.

Who he was I could not possibly tell from that distance, but of his
occupation I became assured at the moment that he moved; for the
moonlight glittered brightly on the lenses of the binoculars through
which he had been surveying some point visible only from that
elevation.

Still I watched, and again I saw the man of the tower raise his
glasses and resume his scrutiny of that distant object which so
closely engaged his attention. Remembering that a patch of light
touched the top of the wall, spearlike, at the point where I must
cross it in order to reach the fir tree, I abandoned my former
precautions and hurried through the tangled weeds towards the fir
which was my sailing mark.

Hastily I scrambled up the natural ladder formed by the vine, and
without pause climbed down again to the edge of the dry ditch beyond.
To have looked back over the wall would have been useless, since from
that point the tower would have been invisible. Nor indeed had I any
desire to pause in my precarious journey.

That I had avoided man-traps in that hurried retreat through the
weeds, I knew not whether to ascribe to good luck or to the fact that
none were set there, but now in the more open ground, thickly
bestrewn, however, with clumps of undergrowth, I resumed all my old
vigilance, and carefully retraced the path, so well as I could
remember it, by which I had first arrived at the friendly fir.

When at last I found myself once more upon the highroad and free of
the ground of Friar's Park, I stood a while and wondered to find
myself bathed in perspiration.

There was something very eerie in the thought that I had explored
those numerous rooms of the deserted house and had moreover encircled
the entire building habitable and otherwise, whilst that mysterious
watcher all the time had been lurking up there in the tower! I
wondered what his survey portended. If it signified that he had
detected my presence at the moment that I had left the house, why was
his gaze focused upon the distance and not upon the surrounding
grounds? If he had not seen or heard me, then I must compliment mysel