em in what I took to be an attitude of prayer: and I
saw, and started at seeing, that on them were deep stains of blood.
The sky above was overcast. The same boy now turned his face towards
the wall of the garden, and beckoned with both his raised hands, and
as he did so I was conscious that some moving objects were becoming
visible over the top of the wall--whether heads or other parts of some
animal or human forms I could not tell. Upon the instant the elder boy
turned sharply, seized the arm of the younger (who all this time had
been poring over what lay on the ground), and both hurried off. I then
saw blood upon the grass, a little pile of bricks, and what I thought
were black feathers scattered about. That scene closed, and the next
was so dark that perhaps the full meaning of it escaped me. But what I
seemed to see was a form, at first crouching low among trees or bushes
that were being threshed by a violent wind, then running very swiftly,
and constantly turning a pale face to look behind him, as if he feared
a pursuer: and, indeed, pursuers were following hard after him. Their
shapes were but dimly seen, their number--three or four, perhaps,
only guessed. I suppose they were on the whole more like dogs than
anything else, but dogs such as we have seen they assuredly were not.
Could I have closed my eyes to this horror, I would have done so at
once, but I was helpless. The last I saw was the victim darting
beneath an arch and clutching at some object to which he clung: and
those that were pursuing him overtook him, and I seemed to hear the
echo of a cry of despair. It may be that I became unconscious:
certainly I had the sensation of awaking to the light of day after an
interval of darkness. Such, in literal truth, Emily, was my vision--I
can call it by no other name--of this afternoon. Tell me, have I not
been the unwilling witness of some episode of a tragedy connected with
this very house?"

The letter is continued next day. "The tale of yesterday was not
completed when I laid down my pen. I said nothing of my experiences to
my uncle--you know, yourself, how little his robust common-sense would
be prepared to allow of them, and how in his eyes the specific remedy
would be a black draught or a glass of port. After a silent evening,
then--silent, not sullen--I retired to rest. Judge of my terror,
when, not yet in bed, I heard what I can only describe as a distant
bellow, and knew it for my uncle's voice, though