[Illustration]

A low moan was all that came from the cook, nor would Hankinson have
listened to more had there been more to hear, for simultaneously with the
moan he became uncomfortably conscious of a presence. In trying to
describe it afterwards, Hankinson said that at first he thought a cold
draught from a dank cavern filled with a million eels, and a rattlesnake
or two thrown in for luck, was blowing over him, and he avowed that it was
anything but pleasant; and then it seemed to change into a mist drawn
largely from a stagnant pool in a malarial country, floating through which
were great quantities of finely chopped sea-weed, wet hair, and an
indescribable atmosphere of something the chief quality of which was a
sort of stale clamminess that was awful in its intensity.

"I'm glad," Mr. Terwilliger murmured to himself, "that I ain't one of
those delicately reared nobles. If I had anything less than a right-down
regular republican constitution I'd die of fright."

And then his natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for
the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the
form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable
eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of
red caused by small specks of that hue semioccasionally seen floating
across her dilated pupils.

"You are the Bangletop ghost, I presume?" said Terwilliger, rising and
standing near the fire to thaw out his system.

The spectre made no reply, but pointed to the door.