nce the old butler rushed into the room, most
extraordinarily pale:

"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse--'

"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.

"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.

"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
don't know.'

"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
carried by some of the men-servants.

"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
strange to be seen anywhere.

"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lan