panion
breathing. For fully ten minutes we two remained thus, each momentarily
expecting a repetition of the ringing, or the coming of some new and
more sinister manifestation. But we heard nothing and saw nothing.

"Hand me that grip, and don't stir until I come back!" hissed Smith in
my ear.

He turned and walked out of the library, his boots creaking very loudly
in that awe-inspiring silence.

Standing beside the table, I watched the open door for his return,
crushing down a dread that another form than his might suddenly appear
there.

I could hear him moving from room to room, and presently, as I waited
in hushed, tense watchfulness, he came in, depositing the grip upon the
table. His eyes were gleaming feverishly.

"The house is haunted, Pearce!" he cried. "But no ghost ever frightened
me! Come, I will show you your room."

CHAPTER XXVI. THE FIERY HAND

Smith walked ahead of me upstairs; he had snapped up the light in the
hallway, and now he turned and cried back loudly:

"I fear we should never get servants to stay here."

Again I detected the appeal to a hidden Audience; and there was
something very uncanny in the idea. The house now was deathly still; the
ringing had entirely subsided. In the upper corridor my companion, who
seemed to be well acquainted with the position of the switches, again
turned up all the lights, and in pursuit of the strange comedy which he
saw fit to enact, addressed me continuously in the loud and unnatural
voice which he had adopted as part of his disguise.

We looked into a number of rooms all well and comfortably furnished, but
although my imagination may have been responsible for the idea, they
all seemed to possess a chilly and repellent atmosphere. I felt that to
essay sleep in any one of them would be the merest farce, that the
place to all intents and purposes was uninhabitable, that something
incalculably evil presided over the house.

And through it all, so obtuse was I, that no glimmer of the truth
entered my mind. Outside again in the long, brightly lighted corridor,
we stood for a moment as if a mutual anticipation of some new event
pending had come to us. It was curious that sudden pulling up and silent
questioning of one another; because, although we acted thus, no sound
had reached us. A few seconds later our anticipation was realized. From
the direction of the stairs it came--a low wailing in a woman's voice;
and the sweetness of the tones added to th