Within the course of the next few days, a strange rumour spread through
Dominey and the district,--from the farm labourer to the farmer, from
the school children to their homes, from the village post-office to the
neighbouring hamlets. A gang of woodmen from a neighbouring county,
with an engine and all the machinery of their craft, had started to work
razing to the ground everything in the shape of tree or shrub at
the north end of the Black Wood. The matter of the war was promptly
forgotten. Before the second day, every man, woman and child in the
place had paid an awed visit to the outskirts of the wood, had listened
to the whirr of machinery, had gazed upon the great bridge of planks
leading into the wood, had peered, in the hope of some strange discovery
into the tents of the men who were camping out. The men themselves were
not communicative, and the first time the foreman had been known to
open his mouth was when Dominey walked down to discuss progress, on the
morning after his arrival.

"It's a dirty bit of work, sir," he confided. "I don't know as I ever
came across a bit of woodland as was so utterly, hopelessly rotten. Why,
the wood crumbles when you touch it, and the men have to be within reach
of one another the whole of the time, though we've a matter of five
hundred planks down there."

"Come across anything unusual yet?"

"We ain't come across anything that isn't unusual so far, sir. My men
are all wearing extra leggings to keep them from being bitten by them
adders--as long as my arm, some of 'em. And there's fungus there which,
when you touch it, sends out a smell enough to make a man faint. We
killed a cat the first day, as big and as fierce as a young tigress.
It's a queer job, sir."

"How long will it take?"

"Matter of three weeks, sir, and when we've got the timber out you'll be
well advised to burn it. It's not worth a snap of the fingers.--Begging
your pardon, sir," the man went on, "the old lady in the distance there
hangs about the whole of the time. Some of my men are half scared of
her."

Dominey swung around. On a mound a little distance away in the park,
Rachael Unthank was standing. In her rusty black clothes, unrelieved
by any trace of colour, her white cheeks and strange eyes, even in the
morning light she was a repellent figure. Dominey strolled across to
her.

"You see, Mrs. Unthank," he began--

She interrupted him. Her skinny hand was stretched out towards the wood.

"W