terns, searched
'round the home park. But we found nothing.
"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
of the door.
"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
nothing for a little. Then he caught it--the sound of a horse, seemingly
a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
each
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