more than twenty yards
each way. I was just about to retire by the road I had come, for in
spite of my fur coat it was uncommon chilly on that perch, when I heard
a key turn in the door in the Chateau wall beneath me.

A lantern made a blur of light in the misty darkness. I saw that the
bearer was a woman, an oldish woman, round-shouldered like most French
peasants. In one hand she carried a leather bag, and she moved so
silently that she must have worn rubber boots. The light was held level
with her head and illumined her face. It was the evillest thing I have
ever beheld, for a horrible scar had puckered the skin of the forehead
and drawn up the eyebrows so that it looked like some diabolical
Chinese mask.

Slowly she padded across the yard, carrying the bag as gingerly as if
it had been an infant. She stopped at the door of one of the outhouses
and set down the lantern and her burden on the ground. From her apron
she drew something which looked like a gas-mask, and put it over her
head. She also put on a pair of long gauntlets. Then she unlocked the
door, picked up the lantern and went in. I heard the key turn behind
her.

Crouching on that wall, I felt a very ugly tremor run down my spine. I
had a glimpse of what the Canadian's ghost might have been. That hag,
hooded like some venomous snake, was too much for my stomach. I dropped
off the wall and ran--yes, ran till I reached the highroad and saw the
cheery headlights of a transport wagon, and heard the honest speech of
the British soldier. That restored me to my senses, and made me feel
every kind of a fool.

As I drove back to the line with Archie, I was black ashamed of my
funk. I told myself that I had seen only an old countrywoman going to
feed her hens. I convinced my reason, but I did not convince the whole
of me. An insensate dread of the place hung around me, and I could only
retrieve my self-respect by resolving to return and explore every nook
of it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Adventure of the Picardy Chateau

I looked up Eaucourt Sainte-Anne on the map, and the more I studied its
position the less I liked it. It was the knot from which sprang all the
main routes to our Picardy front. If the Boche ever broke us, it was
the place for which old Hindenburg would make. At all hours troops and
transport trains were moving through that insignificant hamlet. Eminent
generals and their staffs passed daily within sight of the Chateau. It
was a convenient