ce seemed to
me, I descended. There was a lamp over the archway, but the glass was
broken, and the rain apparently had extinguished the light; as I passed
under it, I could hear the gas whistling from the burner.

Continuing my way, I found myself upon a narrow wharf with the Thames
flowing gloomily beneath me. A sort of fog hung over the river, shutting
me in. Then came an incident.

Suddenly, quite near, there arose a weird and mournful cry--a cry
indescribable, and inexpressibly uncanny!

I started back so violently that how I escaped falling into the river
I do not know to this day. That cry, so eerie and so wholly unexpected,
had unnerved me; and realizing the nature of my surroundings, and the
folly of my presence alone in such a place, I began to edge back toward
the foot of the steps, away from the thing that cried; when--a great
white shape uprose like a phantom before me!...

There are few men, I suppose, whose lives have been crowded with so many
eerie happenings as mine, but this phantom thing which grew out of the
darkness, which seemed about to envelope me, takes rank in my memory
amongst the most fearsome apparitions which I have witnessed.

I knew that I was frozen with a sort of supernatural terror. I stood
there with hands clenched, staring--staring at that white shape, which
seemed to float.

As I stared, every nerve in my body thrilling, I distinguished the
outline of the phantom. With a subdued cry, I stepped forward. A new
sensation claimed me. In that one stride I passed from the horrible to
the bizarre.

I found myself confronted with something tangible, certainly, but
something whose presence in that place was utterly extravagant--could
only be reconcilable in the dreams of an opium slave.

Was I awake, was I sane? Awake and sane beyond doubt, but surely
moving, not in the purlieus of Limehouse, but in the fantastic realms of
fairyland.

Swooping, with open arms, I rounded up in an angle against the building
and gathered in this screaming thing which had inspired in me so keen a
terror.

The great, ghostly fan was closed as I did so, and I stumbled back
toward the stair with my struggling captive tucked under my arm; I
mounted into one of London's darkest slums, carrying a beautiful white
peacock!

CHAPTER XII. DARK EYES LOOKED INTO MINE

My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feeling of unreality which
held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird firmly by the body