Vaguely, against the window I perceived him silhouetted.
He was looking out across the moor, and--
"See! see!" he hissed.
My heart thumping furiously in my breast, I bent over him; and for the
second time since our coming to Cragmire Tower, my thoughts flew to
"The Fenman."
There are shades in the fen; ghosts of women and men
Who have sinned and have died, but are living again.
O'er the waters they tread, with their lanterns of dread,
And they peer in the pools--in the pools of the dead....
A light was dancing out upon the moor, a witch-light that came and
went unaccountably, up and down, in and out, now clearly visible, now
masked in the darkness!
"Lock the door!" snapped my companion--"if there's a key."
I crept across the room and fumbled for a moment; then--
"There is no key," I reported.
"Then wedge the chair under the knob and let no one enter until I
return!" he said amazingly.
With that he opened the window to its fullest extent, threw his leg
over the sill, and went creeping along a wide concrete ledge, in which
ran a leaded gutter, in the direction of the tower on the right!
Not pausing to follow his instructions respecting the chair, I craned
out of the window, watching his progress, and wondering with what
sudden madness he was bitten. Indeed, I could not credit my senses,
could not believe that I heard and saw aright. Yet there out in the
darkness on the moor moved the will-o'-the-wisp, and ten yards along
the gutter crept my friend, like a great gaunt cat.
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