steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a
grand door and no windies."

"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?"

"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no
fickle Thomas Yownie."

The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he
had played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the
delights of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great
empty house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest,
and with death or wounds as the stakes!

He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of
a Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see
the garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to
the verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things
if there had been any light, which there was not. He heard the
soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible
in a din when a loud noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind
blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the
flickering light of a lantern.

Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor
and a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.

The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern
was relit. Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long