e supposed to be
sleeping tranquilly in his own room--showed tall and angular in the
aperture.

[Illustration: "THE FIGURE OF HIS UNCLE ... SHOWED TALL AND ANGULAR IN
THE APERTURE"]

From John's position, the open door and the lighted interior of the
little edifice were distinctly visible; and in one glance he saw his
uncle's silhouetted figure and behind it a bare space some dozen feet
square, lined on floor and walls with sections of marble alternately
black and white. From the ceiling of this chamber depended an
octagonal symbol in polished metal, and close by the door eight wax
candles flickered slightly in the faint stir of air. But his astonished
and inquisitive eyes had barely become aware of these details when
Andrew Henderson turned towards the circular sconce in which the candles
were set and began to extinguish them one by one. As the light died, he
stepped forward and John drew back sharply; but at his movement a stone,
loosened by his heel, went rolling down into the hollow. And a moment
later his uncle, glancing up, saw his figure outlined against the
luminous sky.

What the outcome of the incident would have been on any other occasion,
it is difficult to say. As it was, the moment was propitious. Old
Henderson, surprised in an instant of exaltation, was pleased to put his
own narrow, superstitious construction on the boy's appearance. Laboring
under an abnormal excitement, he showed no resentment at the fact of
being spied upon; but calling John to him, ordered him to walk home
beside him across the cliff.

Never was walk so strange--never were companions so ill-matched as the
two who threaded their way back over the headland. Andrew Henderson
walked first, talking all the time in a jargon addressed partly to the
boy, partly to himself, in which mysticism was oddly tangled with a
confusion of crazy theories and beliefs; behind came John, half
fascinated and wholly bewildered by the medley of words that poured out
upon the night.

On reaching the house, the old man became suddenly silent again, falling
back as if by habit into the morose absorption that marked his daily
life; but as he turned to mount the stairs to his own room, he paused
and his curious light-blue eyes travelled over his nephew's face.

"Good-night!" he said. "You make a good listener."

And John--still confused and silent--retired to bed, to lie awake for
many hours, partly thrilled and partly elated by the awesome thought
that