n, as Alphonse disappeared around the north side, he stepped
back to the shell walk and followed one of its branches around the
other. An instant later Pierce heard him call. Hastening in his wake,
the youngster came upon his captain standing under a window, one of
whose blinds was hanging partly open, water standing in pools all around
him.

"Look here," was all he said, and pointed upward.

The sill was above the level of their heads, but both could see that the
sash was raised. All was darkness within.

"Come with me," was Cram's next order, and the lieutenant followed.
Alphonse was unlocking the front door, and now threw it open. Cram
strode into the wide hall-way straight to a door of the east side. It
was locked. "Open this, Alphonse," he said.

"I have not the key. It is ever with M'sieu' Lascelles. It is his
library."

Cram stepped back, gave one vigorous kick with a heavy riding-boot, and
the frail door flew open with a crash. For a moment the darkness was
such that no object could be distinguished within. The negro servant
hung back, trembling from some indefinable dread. The captain, his hand
on the door-knob, stepped quickly into the gloomy apartment, Pierce
close at his heels. A broad, flat-topped desk stood in the centre of the
room. Some shelves and books were dimly visible against the wall. Some
of the drawers of the desk were open, and there was a litter of papers
on the desk, and others were strown in the big rattan chair, some on the
floor. Two student-lamps could be dimly distinguished, one on the big
desk, another on a little reading-table placed not far from the south
window, whose blinds, half open, admitted almost the only light that
entered the room. With its head near this reading-table and faintly
visible, a bamboo lounge stretched its length towards the southward
windows, where all was darkness, and something vague and
indistinguishable lay extended upon the lounge. Cram marched half-way
across the floor, then stopped short, glanced down, and stepped quickly
to one side, shifting his heavily-booted feet as though to avoid some
such muddy pool as those encountered without.

"Take care," he whispered, and motioned warningly to Pierce. "Come here
and open these shutters, Alphonse," were the next words. But once again
that prolonged, dismal, mournful howl was heard under the south window,
and the negro, seized with uncontrollable panic, turned back and clung
trembling to the opposite wall.