n the
west, the sun went down in a glare of coppery thunder-rack, and the
whole earth broiling under an unspeakable oppression and sultriness
paused and panted for the storm. After sunset the remote fires of
lightning began to wink and flicker on the horizon, but when bed-time
came the storm seemed to have moved no nearer, though a very low
unceasing noise of thunder was audible. Weary and oppressed by the
stress of the day, Darcy fell at once into a heavy uncomforting sleep.

He woke suddenly into full consciousness, with the din of some appalling
explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up in bed with racing heart.
Then for a moment, as he recovered himself from the panic-land which
lies between sleeping and waking, there was silence, except for the
steady hissing of rain on the shrubs outside his window. But suddenly
that silence was shattered and shredded into fragments by a scream from
somewhere close at hand outside in the black garden, a scream of supreme
and despairing terror. Again, and once again it shrilled up, and then a
babble of awful words was interjected. A quivering sobbing voice that he
knew, said:

"My God, oh, my God; oh, Christ!"

And then followed a little mocking, bleating laugh. Then was silence
again; only the rain hissed on the shrubs.

All this was but the affair of a moment, and without pause either to put
on clothes or light a candle, Darcy was already fumbling at his
door-handle. Even as he opened it he met a terror-stricken face outside,
that of the man-servant who carried a light.

"Did you hear?" he asked.

The man's face was bleached to a dull shining whiteness.

"Yes, sir," he said. "It was the master's voice."

* * * * *

Together they hurried down the stairs, and through the dining-room where
an orderly table for breakfast had already been laid, and out on to the
terrace. The rain for the moment had been utterly stayed, as if the tap
of the heavens had been turned off, and under the lowering black sky,
not quite dark, since the moon rode somewhere serene behind the
conglomerated thunder-clouds, Darcy stumbled into the garden, followed
by the servant with the candle. The monstrous leaping shadow of himself
was cast before him on the lawn; lost and wandering odors of rose and
lily and damp earth were thick about him, but more pungent was some
sharp and acrid smell that suddenly reminded him of a certain chalet in
which he had once taken refuge