I
intend taking you there to-night. I thought we would watch outside one
of the houses.'

"'If you don't mind,' I said, 'I would rather not. Anyway not to-night.
Tell me how to get there and I will go alone.'

"Krantz smiled. 'You are a strange creature, Trobas,' he said, 'the
strangest in the world. I sometimes wonder if you are an elemental. At
all events, you occupy a category all to yourself. Of course go alone,
if you would rather. I shall be far happier here, and if you can find a
satisfactory solution to the mystery and put an end to the hauntings, I
shall be eternally grateful. When will you start, and what will you
take with you?'

"'If that clock of yours is right, Krantz,' I exclaimed, pointing to a
gun-metal timepiece on the mantelshelf, 'in half an hour. As the night
promises to be cold, let me have some strong brandy-and-water, a dozen
oatmeal biscuits, a thick rug, and a lantern. Nothing else!'

"Krantz carried out my instructions to the letter. His motor took me to
Dolmen Valley, and at eight o'clock I began the ascent of the hill. On
reaching the summit, I uttered an exclamation. 'Someone has been
excavating, and quite recently!'

"It was precisely what I had anticipated. Some weeks previously, a
member of the Lyons literary club, to which I belong, had informed me
that a party of geologist friends of his had been visiting the cromlechs
of Brittany, and had committed the most barbarous depredations there.
Hence, the moment Krantz mentioned the 'Druidical circle,' I associated
the spot with the visit of the geologists; and knowing only too well
that disturbances of ancient burial grounds almost always lead to occult
manifestations, I decided to view the place at once.

"That I had not erred in my associations was now only too apparent.
Abominable depredations HAD been committed,--doubtless, by the people to
whom I have alluded--and, unless I was grossly mistaken, herein lay the
clue to the hauntings.

"The air being icy, I had to wrap both my rug and my overcoat tightly
round me to prevent myself from freezing, and every now and then I got
up and stamped my feet violently on the hard ground to restore the
circulation.

"So far there had been nothing in the atmosphere to warn me of the
presence of the superphysical, but, precisely at eleven o'clock, I
detected the sudden amalgamation, with the ether, of that enigmatical,
indefinable SOMETHING, to which I have so frequently alluded in my past
ad