nd silence, and I pulled
my best, regardless of my stiff wrist. During our watch I had had time
to perceive the wisdom of the arrangements which had been made. We had
been watching from a place fairly out of sight from the ruin, yet
sufficiently near it to be able to reach its neighbourhood before
Hewitt; and certainly it was better to approach the actual spot at the
same time as Hewitt himself, for then, if he were being watched for, the
attention of the watcher would be diverted from us.

Presently we reached the reed-bed that Hewitt had spoken of, and I could
see a sort of little creek or inlet. Here I ceased to pull, and Styles
cautiously punted us into the creek with one of the sculls. The boat
grounded noiselessly in the mud, and we crept ashore one at a time
through mud and sedge.

The creek was edged with a bank of rough, broken ground, grown with
coarse grass and bramble, and as we peeped over this bank the ruined
house stood before us--so near as to startle me by its proximity. It
must have been a large house originally--if, indeed, it was ever
completed. Now it stood roofless, dismantled, and windowless, and in
many places whole rods of brickwork had fallen and now littered the
ground about. The black gap of the front door stood plain to see, with a
short flight of broken steps before it, and by the side of these a thick
timber shore supported the front wall. It struck me then that the ruin
was perhaps largely due to a failure of the marshy foundation.

The place seemed silent and empty. Hewitt's footsteps were now plain to
hear, and presently he appeared, walking briskly as before. He could not
see us, and did not look for us, but made directly for the broken steps.
He mounted these, paused on the topmost, and struck a match. It seemed a
rather large hall, and I caught a momentary glimpse of bare rafters and
plasterless wall. Then the match went out and Hewitt stepped within.

Almost on the instant there came a loud jar, and a noise of falling
bricks; and then, in the same instant of time I heard a terrific crash,
and saw Hewitt leap out at the front door--leap out, as it seemed, from
a cloud of dust and splinters.

I sprang to my feet, but Plummer pulled me down again. "Steady!" he
said, "lie low! He isn't hurt. Wait and see before we show ourselves."

It seemed that the floor above had fallen on the spot where Hewitt had
been standing. He had alighted from his leap on hands and knees, but now
stood f