ad beast, be qui-et! A couche!"

"To keep away ghosts! What a muff he must be!" said Miss Hen. "Chum,
what do you say to putting on white sheets and giving him a scare? If
we did a skirly-whirly a la Loie Fuller, below his window, he'd
probably have blue fits. Ghosts, indeed!"

"If that big brown Punch got out at you it's you would have the blue
fits," said Miss Chum. "The Sark air is getting into your head,
Hennie."

"Of course it is. That's what we came for, isn't it? You'll feel it
yourself before you're two days older, my child. You're looking better
than I've seen you for a month past."

"It's so delightful to feel free," said Miss Chum.

III

Thoroughly tired out, and with a guardian angel on the mat at his
bedside, in the shape of a long brown body which sought fresh ease in
an occasional sprawl, and flopped a responsive tail each time he
dropped a friendly pat on to its head in the dark--Graeme looked
confidently for a sound night's rest.

He fell asleep indeed at once, but woke with a start sometime in the
night, with the impression of a sound in his ears. Had he really heard
something? Or was it only the tail-end of a dream? Wood-lined houses
talk in the night. Was it only the pitch pine whispering of the old
free days in the scented woods? He could not be sure, so he lay still
and listened.

And as he waited, it came again--a low, wailing cry, long-drawn and
somewhat curdling to the blood.

Outside or inside? He could not be sure.

Cats? Cats can do wonders in the way of uncanny noises, but somehow
this did not sound like cats. There was something human, or inhuman,
in it, and his door suddenly shook as though something tried to get
in.

He bethought him to feel for Punch. But his hand fell on space, and as
he struck a match to see the time and what had become of his
companion, the church bell tolled one dismal stroke, and he saw Punch
standing like a bronze statue at the door, with his nose down at the
crack, his tail on the droop, and every hair apparently on the
bristle.

At the glow of the match the drooping tail gave one slow swing, but he
did not look round.

Graeme struck another match, and lit his candle, and jumped into his
shoes.

"What is it, old fellow?" And Punch scraped furiously at the door
again, and so explained that part of the matter.

There came a sudden scuffling fall against the door. Punch rasped at
it with his front feet in strenuous silence. If he had been able