livid sky.

Their fear was not abated, but their curiosity had increased. The
birds'-nesters approached.

Suddenly the light reappeared at both windows at the same moment.

The two young urchins from Torteval took to their heels and vanished.
The daring French boy did not advance, but he kept his ground.

He remained motionless, confronting the house and watching it.

The light disappeared, and appeared again once more. Nothing could be
more horrible. The reflection made a vague streak of light upon the
grass, wet with the night dew. All of a moment the light cast upon the
walls of the house two huge dark profiles, and the shadows of enormous
heads.

The house, however, being without ceilings, and having nothing left but
its four walls and roof, one window could not be lighted without the
other.

Perceiving that the caulker's apprentice kept his ground, the other
birds'-nesters returned, step by step, and one after the other,
trembling and curious. The caulker's apprentice whispered to them,
"There are ghosts in the house. I have seen the nose of one." The two
Torteval boys got behind their companion, standing tiptoe against his
shoulder; and thus sheltered, and taking him for their shield, felt
bolder and watched also.

The house on its part seemed also to be watching them. There it stood in
the midst of that vast darkness and silence, with its two glaring eyes.
These were its upper windows. The light vanished, reappeared, and
vanished again, in the fashion of these unearthly illuminations. These
sinister intermissions had, probably, some connection with the opening
and shutting of the infernal regions. The air-hole of a sepulchre has
thus been seen to produce effects like those from a dark lantern.

Suddenly a dark form, like that of a human being, ascended to one of the
windows, as if from without, and plunged into the interior of the house.

To enter by the window is the custom with spirits.

The light was for a moment more brilliant, then went out, and appeared
no more. The house became dark. The noises resembled voices. This is
always the case. When there was anything to be seen it is silent. When
all became invisible again, noises were heard.

There is a silence peculiar to night-time at sea. The repose of darkness
is deeper on the water than on the land. When there is neither wind nor
wave in that wild expanse, over which, in ordinary time, even the flight
of eagles makes no sound, the movement of