sitting in a deep chair with the boy fast
asleep in his arms--sitting and looking all about him with the dumb
agony of a trapped mouse. I'll never forget how he clutched the boy to
him nor the cry he gave when the door opened to admit us, the sob of
relief when he saw it was only us. His cry and his movement awoke the
boy, but he dropped off to sleep again before I left, and was breathing
healthily and peacefully. The last look I had at the picture as I went
out, Mr. Cleek, the dear old chap was holding his pet in his arms and
smiling down into his boyish face. So he was still sitting, Miss
Comstock tells me, when she came down this morning. 'Look,' he said to
her, 'I watched him--I held him--the tenth day is past and the death
didn't get him, my bonnie!' Then called her to his side and shook the
little fellow to awaken him. It was then only that he discovered the
truth. The boy was stone-dead!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

'"There, Mr. Cleek," resumed the Captain, after he could master his
emotion. "That is the case--that is the riddle I am praying to Heaven
that you may be able to solve. What the mysterious power is, when,
where, or how it got into the room and got at the boy, God alone knows.
Mr. Harmstead will swear that he never let the little fellow out of his
arms for one solitary instant between the time of our leaving him just
after midnight, and Miss Comstock's coming in in the morning. He admits,
however, that twice during that period he fell asleep, but it was only
for a few minutes each time; and long years of being constantly alert
for possible marauders--out there in the wilds of Australia--have tended
to make his sleep so light that anything heavier than a cat's footfall
wakes him on the instant. Yet last night something--man or spirit--came
and went, and he neither heard nor saw either sound or shape from
midnight until morning. One thing I must tell you, however, which may
throw some light upon the movements of the appalling thing. Whereas Mr.
Harmstead not only closed, but locked, both of the two windows in the
room, and pinned the thick plushette curtains of them together--as Miss
Comstock and I saw them pinned when we left the room last night--when
those curtains came to be drawn this morning one of the windows was
found to be partly open, and there was a smear of something that looked
like grease across the sill and the stone coping beyond."

"Of course, of course!" commented Cleek enigmatically. "P