ned upon the supernatural, upon houses and
places that were reputed to be haunted, and then Madame la Comtesse made
a remarkable statement. She laughingly asserted that she had just
learned that, in purchasing the Chateau Larouge, she had also become the
possessor of a sort of family ghost. She said that she had only just
heard, from an outside source, that there was a horrible legend
connected with the place; in short, that for centuries it had been
reputed to be under a sort of spell of evil and to be cursed by a
dreadful visitant known as 'The Red Crawl'--a hideous and loathsome
creature. It was neither spider nor octopus, but horribly resembled both
and was supposed to 'appear' at intervals in the middle of the night
and, like the fabled giants of fairy tales, carry off 'lovely maidens
and devour them.'"

"Who is responsible for that ridiculous assertion, I wonder? I think I
may say that I know as much about the Chateau Larouge and its history as
anybody, Miss Lorne, but I never heard of this supposed 'legend' before
in all my life."

"So the baron, too, declared, laughing as derisively as any of us over
the story, although it is well known that he has a natural antipathy to
all crawling things, an abhorrence inherited from his mother, and has
been known to run like a frightened child from the appearance of a mere
garden spider."

"Oho!" said Cleek again. "I see! I see! The toasted cheese smells
stronger, and there's a distinct suggestion of the Rhine about it this
time. There's something decidedly German about that fabulous 'monster'
and that haunted Chateau, Miss Lorne. They are clever and careful
schemers, those German Johnnies. Of course, this amazing 'Red Crawl' was
proved to have an absolute foundation in fact, and equally, of course,
it 'appeared' to the Baron de Carjorac?"

"Yes--that very night. After we had all gone to bed, the house was
roused by his screams. Everybody rushed to his chamber, only to find him
lying on the floor in a state of collapse. The thing had been in his
room, he said. He had seen it, it had even touched him--a horrible,
hideous red reptile, with squirming tentacles, a huge, glowing body, and
eyes like flame. It had crept upon him out of the darkness, he knew not
from where. It had seized him, resisted all his wild efforts to tear
loose from it, and when he finally sank, overcome and fainting, upon the
floor, his last conscious recollection was of the loathsome thing
settling do