ecame overpowered by what is called a panic terror. I knew nothing,
that is, to be afraid of, and yet I submit that I was heartily afraid;
and it was with a sensible reluctance that I returned to my exposed and
solitary camp in the Sea-Wood.

There I ate some cold porridge which had been left over from the night
before, for I was disinclined to make a fire; and, feeling strengthened
and reassured, dismissed all these fanciful terrors from my mind, and
lay down to sleep with composure.

How long I may have slept it is impossible for me to guess; but I was
awakened at last by a sudden, blinding flash of light into my face. It
woke me like a blow. In an instant I was upon my knees. But the light
had gone as suddenly as it came. The darkness was intense. And, as it
was blowing great guns from the sea and pouring with rain, the noises of
the storm effectually concealed all others.

It was, I daresay, half a minute before I regained my self-possession.
But for two circumstances, I should have thought I had been awakened by
some new and vivid form of nightmare. First, the flap of my tent, which
I had shut carefully when I retired, was now unfastened; and, second, I
could still perceive, with a sharpness that excluded any theory of
hallucination, the smell of hot metal and of burning oil. The conclusion
was obvious. I had been wakened by some one flashing a bull's-eye
lantern in my face. It had been but a flash, and away. He had seen my
face, and then gone. I asked myself the object of so strange a
proceeding, and the answer came pat. The man, whoever he was, had
thought to recognise me, and he had not. There was yet another question
unresolved: and to this, I may say, I feared to give an answer; if he
had recognised me, what would he have done?

My fears were immediately diverted from myself, for I saw that I had
been visited in a mistake; and I became persuaded that some dreadful
danger threatened the pavilion. It required some nerve to issue forth
into the black and intricate thicket which surrounded and overhung the
den; but I groped my way to the links, drenched with rain, beaten upon
and deafened by the gusts, and fearing at every step to lay my hand upon
some lurking adversary. The darkness was so complete that I might have
been surrounded by an army and yet none the wiser, and the uproar of the
gale so loud that my hearing was as useless as my sight.

For the rest of that night, which seemed interminably long, I pat