alone by the camp-fire.

Towards midnight I suddenly began to feel that strange, distant
vibration that I had once before felt. As before, the vibration grew
on the still air, increasing in volume until it became a sound, then
died out into silence.

I rose and stole into my tent.

William, white as death, lay in his corner, weeping in his sleep.

I roused him remorselessly, and he sat up scowling, but refused to
tell me what he had been dreaming.

"Was it about that third thing you saw--" I began. But he snarled up
at me like a startled animal, and I was obliged to go to bed and toss
about and speculate.

The next morning it rained. Dorothy and I visited our dingue-trap but
found nothing in it. We were inclined, however, to stay out in the
rain behind a big tree, but Professor Smawl vetoed that proposition
and sent me off to supply the larder with fresh meat.

I returned, mad and wet, with a dozen partridges and a white
hare--brown at that season--and William cooked them vilely.

"I can taste the feathers!" said Professor Smawl, indignantly.

"There is no accounting for taste," I said, with a polite gesture of
deprecation; "personally, I find feathers unpalatable."