gun-room and trooped along at the tail of their guide, Sir Howard
only pausing, in a sort of ecstasy, to point out the celebrated gilt
summerhouse on which the gilt weathercock still stood crooked. It
was dusk turning to dark by the time they reached the remote green
by the poplars and accepted the new and aimless game of shooting at
the old mark.

The last light seemed to fade from the lawn, and the poplars against
the sunset were like great plumes upon a purple hearse, when the
futile procession finally curved round, and came out in front of the
target. Sir Howard again slapped his host on the shoulder, shoving
him playfully forward to take the first shot. The shoulder and arm
he touched seemed unnaturally stiff and angular. Mr. Jenkins was
holding his gun in an attitude more awkward than any that his
satiric friends had seen or expected.

At the same instant a horrible scream seemed to come from nowhere.
It was so unnatural and so unsuited to the scene that it might have
been made by some inhuman thing flying on wings above them or
eavesdropping in the dark woods beyond. But Fisher knew that it had
started and stopped on the pale lips of Jefferson Jenkins, of
Montreal, and no one at that moment catching sight of Jefferson
Jenkins's face would have complained that it was commonplace. The
next moment a torrent of guttural but good-humored oaths came from
Major Burke as he and the two other men saw what was in front of
them. The target stood up in the dim grass like a dark goblin
grinning at them, and it was literally grinning. It had two eyes
like stars, and in similar livid points of light were picked out the
two upturned and open nostrils and the two ends of the wide and
tight mouth. A few white dots above each eye indicated the hoary