cing scream for help, and the person he screamed
to was the very person who was unwittingly the cause of his distress. It
was as though he knew instinctively that the person who had created for
him the terror of the Empty House, with its horrible Inmate, was also
the person who could properly banish it, and undo the mischief before it
was too late. He shrieked for help to the governess, Miss Ethel Lake.

Of course, there was no answer but the noise of the air whistling in his
ears as his feet flew over the road in a cloud of dust; there was no
friendly butcher's cart, no baker's boy, or farmer with his dog and gun;
the road was deserted. There was not even the beetle or the caterpillar;
he was beyond reach of help.

Jimbo ran for his life, but unfortunately he ran in the wrong
direction. Instead of going the way he had come, where the Lodge gates
were ready to receive him not a quarter of a mile away, he fled in the
opposite direction.

It so happened that the lane flanked the field where the cows lived; but
cows were nothing compared to a Creature from the Empty House, and even
bulls seemed friendly. The boy was over the five-barred gate in a
twinkling and half-way across the field before he heard a heavy,
thunderous sound behind him. Either the Thing had followed him into the
field, or it was the bull. As he raced, he managed to throw a glance
over his shoulder and saw a huge, dark mass bearing down upon him at
terrific speed. It must be the bull, he reflected--the bull grown to the
size of an elephant. And it appeared to him to have two immense black
wings that flapped at its sides and helped it forward, making a whirring
noise like the arms of a great windmill.

This sight added to his speed, but he could not last very much longer.
Already his body ached all over, and the frantic effort to get breath
nearly choked him.

There, before him, not so very far away now, was the swinging gate. If
only he could get there in time to scramble over into the garden, he
would be safe. It seemed almost impossible, and behind him, meanwhile,
the sound of the following creature came closer and closer; the ground
seemed to tremble; he could almost feel the breath on his neck.

The swinging gate was only twenty yards off; now ten; now only five. Now
he had reached it--at last. He stretched out his hands to seize the top
bar, and in another moment he would have been safe in the garden and
within easy reach of the house. But, bef