The combined effects of half a dozen cigars and the conversation just concluded with Harrod Summers had banished all desire for sleep. In fact, if I must confess it, I was nervous and ill at ease. The room seemed close and stifling, so I opened both window and door to secure the full benefit of the cool night-air, and then proceeded to make myself comfortable. First pulling off my boots and insinuating my feet into an easy old pair of slippers, I took the boots to the door and deposited them noiselessly in the hall, where small Pomp, the "general utility" man of the household, could find and black them in the morning. A dim light was burning on a little table in the hall, and I noticed Mr. Peyton's boots at his door, the door next to mine, and on the same side of the hall. We were quartered in what was known as the east wing, a one-storied addition to the main building, containing four sleeping apartments for the use of the judge's guests; the floor, as is generally the case in these Southern houses, being elevated some eight or nine feet above the ground. Peyton and I were the only occupants of the wing that night; the rooms of the rest of the household being in the main building. It occurred to me, therefore, that the hall lamp was unnecessary there; and so I crossed over, took it from its table, and was returning with it to my own room, when I heard a long, shrill, distant whistle. It came from the direction of the woods on the eastern side of the plantation, so far away, in fact, that save in the dead of night it probably would have failed to attract attention. Involuntarily I stopped short in my tracks, listening; and involuntarily, too, I looked at Peyton's door. It was closed, but the transom above it was open, and all was darkness within. No sound had come from his room before, and I supposed him asleep; and now, as if in corroboration of that supposition, he began to snore; rather a louder and more demonstrative snore than would have been natural from so sudden a start, I thought afterwards. Meantime, I stood still a minute and listened. The whistle died away, and there was no answer or repetition; the snoring continued; I moved on into my room; closed and bolted the door; put my lamp on the bureau; took out my revolver and carefully examined it; then turned down the light until nothing but a mere glimmer was left; crouched down by the open window, and looked out. The stillness was so intense that the ticking of my watch and the loud beating of my heart seemed insupportable. Leaning out from the casement, I could see that Peyton's window, too, was open, and that there was a little shed of some kind beneath it, whose roof reached up to within about five feet of the window-sill. Garden-tools were probably stored there, as I had noticed a few spades and a wheelbarrow during the day. Peyton was still snoring, though less loudly.