spot where there was a small opening, I put my eye to this and
immediately drew back.

"They are moving nearer the gate," I signalled to Loreen, at which she
crept along a few paces, but with a stealth so great that, alert as I
was, I could not hear a twig snap. I endeavored to imitate her, but not
with as much success as I could wish. The sense of horror which had all
at once settled upon me, the supernatural dread of something which I
could not see, but which I felt, had seized me for the first time and
made the ruddy sky and the broad stretch of velvet turf with the shadows
playing over it of swaying tree-tops and clustered oleanders, more
thrilling and awesome to me than the dim halls of the haunted house of
the Knollys family in that midnight hour when I saw a body carried out
for burial amid trouble and hush and a mystery so great it would have
daunted most spirits for the remainder of their lives.

The very sweetness of the scene made its horror. Never have I had such
sensations, never have I felt so deeply the power of the unseen, yet it
seemed so impossible that anything could happen here, anything which
would explain the total disappearance of several persons at different
times, without a trace of their fate being left to the eye, that I could
but liken my state to that of nightmare, where visions take the place of
realities and often overwhelm them.

I had pressed too close against the hedge as I struggled with these
feelings, and the sound I made struck me as distinct, if not alarming;
but the tree-tops were rustling overhead, and, while Lucetta might have
heard the hedge-branches crack, her companion gave no evidence of doing
so. We could distinguish what they were saying now, and realizing this,
we stopped moving and gave our whole attention to listening. Mr. Trohm
was speaking. I could hardly believe it was his voice, it had so changed
in tone, nor could I perceive in his features, distorted as they now
were by every evil passion, the once quiet and dignified countenance
which had so lately imposed upon me.

"Lucetta, my little Lucetta," he was saying, "so she has come to see me,
come to taunt me with the loss of her lover, whom she says I have robbed
her of almost before her eyes! I rob her! How can I rob her or any one
of a man with a voice and arm of his own stronger than mine? Am I a
wizard to dissipate his body in vapor? Yet can you find it in my house
or on my lawn? You are a fool, Lucetta; so