but at the extreme end, wherein I was to sleep.

A voiceless warning urged me to return; a kind of childish panic came
fluttering about my heart, a dread of entering the room, of allowing the
mulatto to come behind me.

Doubtless this was no more than a sub-conscious 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.

With 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 th