ed back, I cannot say why.
Van Roon already was bending over his papers, in his green shadowed
sanctuary, and the light shining down upon his smoked glasses created
the odd illusion that he was looking over the tops of the lenses and not
down at the table as his attitude suggested. However, it was probably
ascribable to the weird chiaroscuro of the scene, although it gave the
seated figure an oddly malignant appearance, and I passed out through
the utter darkness of the outer room to the front door. Smith opening
it, I was conscious of surprise to find dusk come--to meet darkness
where I had looked for sunlight.

The silver wisps which had raced along the horizon, as we came to
Cragmire Tower, had been harbingers of other and heavier banks. A stormy
sunset smeared crimson streaks across the skyline, where a great range
of clouds, like the oily smoke of a city burning, was banked, mountain
topping mountain, and lighted from below by this angry red. As we came
down the steps and out by the gate, I turned and looked across the moor
behind us. A sort of reflection from this distant blaze encrimsoned the
whole landscape. The inland bay glowed sullenly, as if internal fires
and not reflected light were at work; a scene both wild and majestic.

Nayland Smith was staring up at the cone-like top of the ancient tower
in a curious, speculative fashion. Under the influence of our host's
conversation I had forgotten the reasonless dread which had touched me
at the moment of our arrival, but now, with the red light blazing over
Sedgemoor, as if in memory of the blood which had been shed there,
and with the tower of unknown origin looming above me, I became very
uncomfortable again, nor did I envy Van Roon his eerie residence. The
proximity of a tower of any kind, at night, makes in some inexplicable
way for awe, and to-night there were other agents, too.

"What's that?" snapped Smith suddenly, grasping my arm.

He was peering southward, toward the distant hamlet, and, starting
violently at his words and the sudden grasp of his hand, I, too, stared
in that direction.

"We were followed, Petrie," he almost whispered. "I never got a sight of
our follower, but I'll swear we were followed. Look! there's something
moving over yonder!"

Together we stood staring into the dusk; then Smith burst abruptly into
one of his rare laughs, and clapped me upon the shoulder.

"It's Hagar, the mulatto!" he cried--"and our grips. That extraordina