nce of
the man waited for, when at length, without a warning sound, he issued
from the bushy shadow of a fence into the bright door-yard. In his
person he was not formidable. He was of less than medium stature,
lightly built, and apparently neither sinewy nor agile. But in his grasp
was something long and slender, much concealed by his own shadow, but
showing now a glint of bright metal and now its dark cylindrical end;
something that held the eye of the one who watched him from out the
shadow. Neither the features nor yet the complexion of the one he
watched were discernible, but the eyes were evidently on a third window
of the lighted room not at its front, but on a side invisible to the
watcher. This person rose from his log and moved as speedily as he could
in silence and shadow until he came round in sight of this window and
behind the other figure. Then he saw what had so tardily emboldened the
figure to come forward out of hiding. This window also had a shade, the
shade was lowered, and on it the unseen lamp perfectly outlined the form
of a third person. Without a mutter or the slightest gesture of passion,
the man under the window raised the thing in his grasp as high as his
shoulder, lowered it again and glanced around. He seemed to tremble. The
man at his back did not move; his gaze, too, was now fastened, with
liveliest manifestations of interest, on the window-shade and the moving
image that darkened it.

As the foremost of the two men began for the third time that mysterious
movement which he had twice left unfinished, the one behind, now clearly
discerning his intention, stole one step forward, and then a second, as
if to spring upon him before he could complete the action. But he was
not quick enough. The black and glistening thing rose once more to the
level of its owner's shoulder, and the next instant on the still night
air quivered the plaintive wail of--a flute.

At mortal risks both conjectured and unconjectured, it was an instrument
of music, not of murder, which Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew was aiming
sidewise.

LIII.

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

Yet the pulse of the man behind him, who did not recognize him, began to
quicken with anger. Almost at the flute's first note the image on the
window-shade started and hearkened. A moment later it expanded to
grotesque proportions, the room swiftly grew dark, and in another minute
the window of a smaller one behind it shone dimly as with the flame of a