"I'd hardly like to say," replied Hugh thoughtfully. "As a general
thing that odd, moving light is seen in low, damp places. Often it
is noticed in graveyards in the country, and is believed to be induced
by a condition of the atmosphere, causing something like
phosphorescence. You know what a firefly or lightning bug is like,
don't you, Horatio? Yes, and a glow-worm also? Well, they say that
there are black-looking pools of stagnant water lying around the old
quarry; and yes, I think the lights seen might come from just such
conditions."

"That sounds all very well, Hugh," continued Julius, "but what about
the terrifying cry that sometimes wells up from that same place?"

"A cry, Julius, do you say?" exclaimed Horatio, his eyes growing round
now with increasing wonder and thrilling interest, "do you really and
truly mean that, or are you only joshing?"

"Well," the narrator went on to say soberly, "two fellows told me
they'd heard that same shriek. One was hunting a stray heifer when
he found himself near the quarry, and then got a shock that sent him
on the run all the way home, regardless of trees he banged into, for
it was night-time, with only a quarter-moon up in the western sky.
The other had laughed at all such silly stories, and to prove his
bravery concluded to venture out there one night when the moon was
as round as a cartwheel. He got close to the deserted workings when
he too had a chill as he heard the most outlandish cry agoing, three
times repeated, and---well, he grinned when he confessed that it took
him just about one-fifth the time to get back home that he'd spent in
the going."