ble and hateful cries. I leaped from my bed, supposing
I had dreamed; but the cries still continued to fill the house, cries of
pain, I thought, but certainly of rage also, and so savage and discordant
that they shocked the heart. It was no illusion; some living thing, some
lunatic or some wild animal, was being foully tortured. The thought of
Felipe and the squirrel flashed into my mind, and I ran to the door, but
it had been locked from the outside; and I might shake it as I pleased, I
was a fast prisoner. Still the cries continued. Now they would dwindle
down into a moaning that seemed to be articulate, and at these times I
made sure they must be human; and again they would break forth and fill
the house with ravings worthy of hell. I stood at the door and gave ear
to them, till at, last they died away. Long after that, I still lingered
and still continued to hear them mingle in fancy with the storming of the
wind; and when at last I crept to my bed, it was with a deadly sickness
and a blackness of horror on my heart.

It was little wonder if I slept no more. Why had I been locked in? What
had passed? Who was the author of these indescribable and shocking
cries? A human being? It was inconceivable. A beast? The cries were
scarce quite bestial; and what animal, short of a lion or a tiger, could
thus shake the solid walls of the residencia? And while I was thus
turning over the elements of the mystery, it came into my mind that I had
not yet set eyes upon the daughter of the house. What was more probable
than that the daughter of the Senora, and the sister of Felipe, should be
herself insane? Or, what more likely than that these ignorant and half-
witted people should seek to manage an afflicted kinswoman by violence?
Here was a solution; and yet when I called to mind the cries (which I
never did without a shuddering chill) it seemed altogether insufficient:
not even cruelty could wring such cries from madness. But of one thing I
was sure: I could not live in a house where such a thing was half
conceivable, and not probe the matter home and, if necessary, interfere.

The next day came, the wind had blown itself out, and there was nothing
to remind me of the business of the night. Felipe came to my bedside
with obvious cheerfulness; as I passed through the court, the Senora was
sunning herself with her accustomed immobility; and when I issued from
the gateway, I found the whole face of nature austerely