space, like a falling star.

"Can nothing be done to stop Basil?" I called out.

"No," answered my fellow climber. "He's too far up. He must get to the
top, and when he finds nothing but wind and leaves he may go sane again.
Hark at him above there; you can just hear him talking to himself."

"Perhaps he's talking to us," I said.

"No," said Rupert, "he'd shout if he was. I've never known him to talk
to himself before; I'm afraid he really is bad tonight; it's a known
sign of the brain going."

"Yes," I said sadly, and listened. Basil's voice certainly was sounding
above us, and not by any means in the rich and riotous tones in which
he had hailed us before. He was speaking quietly, and laughing every now
and then, up there among the leaves and stars.

After a silence mingled with this murmur, Rupert Grant suddenly said,
"My God!" with a violent voice.

"What's the matter--are you hurt?" I cried, alarmed.

"No. Listen to Basil," said the other in a very strange voice. "He's not
talking to himself."

"Then he is talking to us," I cried.

"No," said Rupert simply, "he's talking to somebody else."

Great branches of the elm loaded with leaves swung about us in a
sudden burst of wind, but when it died down I could still hear the
conversational voice above. I could hear two voices.

Suddenly from aloft came Basil's boisterous hailing voice as before:
"Come up, you fellows. Here's Lieutenant Keith."

And a second afterwards came the half-American voice we had heard in our
chambers more than once. It called out:

"Happy to see you, gentlemen; pray come in."

Out of a hole in an enormous dark egg-shaped thing, pendent in the
branches like a wasps' nest, was protruding the pale face and fierce
moustache of the lieutenant, his teeth shining with that slightly
Southern air that belonged to him.

Somehow or other, stunned and speechless, we lifted ourselves heavily
into the opening. We fell into the full glow of a lamp-lit, cushioned,
tiny room, with a circular wall lined with books, a circular table,
and a circular seat around it. At this table sat three people. One was
Basil, who, in the instant after alighting there, had fallen into an
attitude of marmoreal ease as if he had been there from boyhood; he was
smoking a cigar with a slow pleasure. The second was Lieutenant Drummond
Keith, who looked happy also, but feverish and doubtful compared with
his granite guest. The third was the little bald-headed house-a