s on to the
common, and, leaving the door wide open behind me, I followed. The
path which Eltham had pursued terminated almost opposite to my house.
One's gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several hundred yards
past the pond, and farther, until it became overshadowed and was lost
amid a clump of trees.

I came up with Smith, and side by side we ran on, whilst pantingly I
told my tale.

"It was a trick to get you away from him!" cried Smith. "They meant no
doubt to make some attempt at your house, but, as he came out with
you, an alternative plan--"

Abreast of the pond, my companion slowed down, and finally stopped.

"Where did you last see Eltham?" he asked, rapidly.

I took his arm, turning him slightly to the right, and pointed across
the moon-bathed common.

"You see that clump of bushes on the other side of the road?" I said.
"There's a path to the left of it. I took that path and he took this.
We parted at the point where they meet--"

Smith walked right down to the edge of the water and peered about over
the surface.

What he hoped to find there I could not imagine. Whatever it had been
he was disappointed, and he turned to me again, frowning perplexedly,
and tugging at the lobe of his left ear, an old trick which reminded
me of gruesome things we had lived through in the past.

"Come on," he jerked. "It may be amongst the trees."

From the tone of his voice I knew that he was tensed up nervously, and
his mood but added to the apprehension of my own.

"_What_ may be amongst the trees, Smith?" I asked.

He walked on.

"God knows, Petrie; but I fear--"

Behind us, along the high-road, a tramcar went rocking by, doubtless
bearing a few belated workers homeward. The stark incongruity of the
thing was appalling. How little those weary toilers, hemmed about with
the commonplace, suspected that almost within sight from the car
windows, amid prosy benches, iron railings, and unromantic, flickering
lamps, two fellow-men moved upon the border of a horror-land!

Beneath the trees a shadow carpet lay, its edges tropically sharp; and
fully ten yards from the first of the group, we two, hatless both, and
sharing a common dread, paused for a moment and listened.

The car had stopped at the farther extremity of the common, and now
with a moan that grew to a shriek was rolling on its way again. We
stood and listened until silence reclaimed the night. Not a footstep
could be heard. Then slowly we walk