man, who drank a lot and never took much exercise. They found him in a
ditch with his clothes all torn and covered with mud. He had been run to
death; there was no wound on his body, but his heart was broken." Her
thoughts recurred to the stone against which they leant, and his quaint
conceit. "You were rather rash to go offering burnt sacrifices about
here, don't you think? Dad says that stone is the remains of an old
Ph[oe]nician altar, too."

She was smiling now, but the seriousness lingered in her eyes.

"And I have probably invoked some terrible heathen deity--Ashtoreth, or
Pugm, or Baal! How awful!" he added, with mock gravity.

The girl rose to her feet.

"You are laughing at me. The people about here are superstitious, and I
am a Celt, too. I belong here."

He jumped up with a quick protest.

"No, I'm not laughing at you. Please don't think that! But it's a little
hard to believe in active evil when all around is so beautiful." He
helped her to mount and walked to the top of the mound at her stirrup.
"Tell me, is there any charm or incantation, in case----?" His eyes were
twinkling, but she shook her fair head soberly.

"They say iron--cold iron--is the only thing it cannot cross. But I must
go!" She held out her hand with half-shy friendliness. "Thank you for
your niceness to me." Her eyes grew suddenly wistful. "Really, though, I
don't think I should stay there if I were you. Please!"

He only laughed, however, and she moved off, shaking her impatient
horse into a canter. Maynard stood looking after her till she was
swallowed by the dusk and surrounding moor. Then, thoughtfully, he
retraced his steps to the hollow.

* * * * *

A cloud lay across the face of the moon when Fear awoke Maynard. He
rolled on to one elbow and stared round the hollow, filled with
inexplicable dread. He was ordinarily a courageous man, and had no
nerves to speak of; yet, as his eyes followed the line of the ridge
against the sky, he experienced terror, the elementary, nauseating
terror of childhood, when the skin tingles, and the heart beats at a
suffocating gallop. It was very dark, but momentarily his eyes grew
accustomed to it. He was conscious of a queer, pungent smell, horribly
animal and corrupt.

Suddenly the utter silence broke. He heard a rattle of stones, the
splash of water about him, realised that it was the brook beneath his
feet, and that he, Maynard, was running for his life.