ble to help me?"

"I will promise to do my utmost, but just at present I can see no
special light. By the way, would it not be well for you to leave The
Hynde for a short time?"

"No, I am not at all afraid; I can take care of myself. It is not my
dear uncle whom I fear; it is Jasper."

Soon afterwards she left me, and as it was still quite early, and the
servants were not yet even up, I considered that an excellent
opportunity had occurred for examining the idol.

I made my way to the gallery, and softly opening the door, stole in. The
bright sunlight which was now flooding the chamber seemed to rob the
grotesque old idol of half its terrors, and I made up my mind not to
leave a stone unturned to discover if any foul play in connection with
it could possibly be perpetrated. But the impossibility of such being
the case seemed more and more evident as I went on with my search. Only
a pigmy could be secreted inside the idol. There was no vulgar form of
deception possible on the lines, for instance, of the ancient priests of
Pompeii who conducted a speaking-tube to an idol's mouth. Siva was not
even standing by the wall, thus precluding the possibility of the sounds
being conducted on the plan of a whispering gallery. No--I was, against
my own will, forced to the absolute conviction that the voice was an
hallucination of the diseased mind of Edward Thesiger.

I was just going to abandon my investigations and return to my own room,
when, more by chance than design, I knelt down for a moment at the
little altar. As I was about to rise I noticed something rather odd. I
listened attentively. It was certainly remarkable. As I knelt I could
just hear a low, continuous hissing sound. Directly I moved away it
ceased. As I tried it several times with the same invariable result, I
became seriously puzzled to account for it. What devilry could be at
work to produce this? Was it possible that some one was playing a trick
on _me_?--and if so, by what means?

I glanced rapidly round, and as I did so a mad thought struck me. I
hurried across to the fountain and put my ear close to the swan's
mouth, from which a tiny jet of water was issuing. The low, scarcely
audible noise that the water made as it flowed out through the swan's
bill was exactly the same sound I had heard nearly twenty feet away at
the altar. The enormity of the situation stunned me for a moment, then
gradually, piece by piece, the plot revealed itself.

The shape