ing up. The clang of the iron bar falling into its bracket across
the great front door echoed through the house. Then all was still.

In the sinister, brooding peace of the desert that ensued, the night
noises presently began to make themselves heard.

A cricket somewhere in the house set up a sprightly cheeping. Far, far
away, an animal wailed, and a jackal distressfully called to its mate.
Then something laughed terribly--rocking, hollow laughter--it might
have been a hyena.

Christine Chaine was a Catholic. She crossed herself in the darkness
and softly repeated some of the prayers whose cadences and noble
phrases seem to hold power to hush the soul into peace. She hoped at
this time they would hush her mind into sleep, but for a long while
many impressions of the day haunted her. Sometimes she saw the
twitching shoulders and tormented gaze of a sick man, then the smiling
blond-and-pink beauty of a woman. Sometimes a pair of blue eyes, with
riddles in them that she would not read, held her; then graves--graves
in a long arid line. At last she slept, the sleep of weariness that
mercifully falls upon the strong and healthy like a weight, blotting
out consciousness.

Then--taps on the shutter, and words:

"_Mind the boy--take care of the boy!_"

They were soft taps and whispered words, but, like the torment of
dropping water, they had their effect at last. The girl sat up in bed
again, her fingers pressed to her temples, her eyes staring, listening,
listening. Yes--they were the same eternal taps and words. With the
dull desperation of fatigue, she got out of bed and approached the
window.

"Who are you? What are you? Tell me what to do," she said quietly.

In the long silence that followed, there was only one answer--the
subtle odour of rottenness stole into the room.

She never knew afterward what possessed her to take the course she did.
Probably if she had not gone to sleep in the strength and peace of
prayers, and awakened with the protection of them woven about her, she
would have taken no course at all. As it was, she knew she had got to
do something to solve the mystery of this warning. It did not occur to
her to get out of the window. The right thing seemed to be to make her
way very quietly through the house, let herself out by the front door,
and come round to the window where the warning thing waited. It would
not hurt her, she knew. It was a hateful Thing, but that its
intention