when I was suddenly aroused
by a loud, sonorous sound ringing in my ears. I sat up bewildered, but
all was silent again. The lamp was burning low, and my watch showed
me that it was going on to midnight. I blundered to my feet, and was
striking a match with the intention of lighting the candles, when the
sharp, vehement cry broke out again so loud and so clear that it might
have been in the very room with me. My chamber is in the front of the
house, while those of my mother and sister are at the back, so that I am
the only one who commands a view of the avenue.

"Rushing to the window I drew the blind aside and looked out. You know
that the gravel-drive opens up so as to form a broad stretch immediately
in front of the house. Just in the centre of this clear space there
stood three men looking up at the house.

"The moon shone full upon them, glistening on their upturned eyeballs,
and by its light I could see that they were swarthy-faced and
black-haired, of a type that I was familiar with among the Sikhs and
Afridis. Two of them were thin, with eager, aesthetic countenances,
while the third was kinglike and majestic, with a noble figure and
flowing beard."

"Ram Singh!" I ejaculated.

"What, you know of them?" exclaimed Mordaunt in great surprise. "You
have met them?"

"I know of them. They are Buddhist priests," I answered, "but go on."

"They stood in a line," he continued, "sweeping their arms upwards
and downwards, while their lips moved as if repeating some prayer or
incantation. Suddenly they ceased to gesticulate, and broke out for the
third time into the wild, weird, piercing cry which had roused me from
my slumber. Never shall I forget that shrill, dreadful summons swelling
and reverberating through the silent night with an intensity of sound
which is still ringing in my ears.

"As it died slowly away, there was a rasping and creaking as of keys
and bolts, followed by the clang of an opening door and the clatter of
hurrying feet. From my window I saw my father and Corporal Rufus Smith
rush frantically out of the house hatless and unkempt, like men who are
obeying a sudden and overpowering impulse. The three strangers laid
no hands on them, but all five swept swiftly away down the avenue and
vanished among the trees. I am positive that no force was used, or
constraint of any visible kind, and yet I am as sure that my poor father
and his companion were helpless prisoners as it I bad seen them dragged
aw