The publican rummaged in the boot, produced a ragged blanket and two long four-cell flashlights, gave one to Foster and the other to me. "Do nae use the electric torches until I tell ye," he said, "lest the whole county see there's folks abroad here." We watched as he draped the blanket over a barbed-wire fence, clambered over, and started across the barren field. Foster and I followed, not talking. The plain was deserted. A lonely light showed on a distant slope. It was a dark night with no moon. I could hardly see the ground ahead. A car moved along a distant road, its headlights bobbing. We moved past the outer ring of stones, skirting fallen slabs twenty feet long. "We'll break our necks," I said. "Let's have one of the flashlights." "Not yet," Foster whispered. Our guide paused; we came up to him. "It were a mortal long time since I were last hereabouts," he said. "I best take me bearings off the Friar's Heel...." "What's that?" "Yon great stone, standing alone in the Avenue." We squinted; it was barely visible as a dark shape against the sky. "The bones were buried there?" Foster asked. "Nay; all by theirself, they was. Now it were twenty paces, granfer said, him bein fifteen stone and long in the leg...." The publican muttered. "What's to keep him from just pointing to a spot after awhile," I said to Foster, "and saying 'This is it'?" "We'll wait and see," Foster said. "They were a hollow, as it were, in the earth," the publican said, "with a bit of stone by it. I reckon it were fifty paces from here--" he pointed, "--yonder." "I don't see anything," I said. "Let's take a closer look." Foster started off and I followed, the publican trailing behind. I made out a dim shape, with a deep depression in the earth before it. "This could be the spot," Foster said. "Old graves often sink--" * * * * * Suddenly he grabbed my arm. "Look...!" The surface of the ground before us seemed to tremble, then heave. Foster snapped on his flashlight. The earth at the bottom of the hollow rose, cracked open. A boiling mass of lumi-self, rose, bumbling along the face of the weathered stone. "Saints preserve us," the publican said in a choked voice. Foster and I stood, rooted to the spot, watching. The lone globe rose higher--and abruptly shot straight toward us. Foster threw up an arm and ducked. The ball of light veered, struck him a glancing blow and darted off a few yards, hovered. In an instant, the air was alive with the spheres, boiling up from the ground, and hurtling toward us, buzzing like a hive of yellow-jackets. Foster's flashlight lanced out toward the swarm.