Distances wove themselves into a veil and hung mysteriously about the tented camp. A meteor streaked down the sky like a blazing spear. Frost with icy fingers slowly gripped the surface of the earth. Drooping tents tightened and stiffened, then stood glistening phantasmally in the ghostly light, their pale, thin shadows draping the ground in angular caricatures. From far away, there came floating through the night, a faint, melancholy wail. "Sam!" "Wot!" "I think I shall go and drown myself." "Drownd yerself! Wot for?" "I'm in love." "In love! Garn! 'oo are yer tryin' ter kid? Why, yer knows no more abaht the 'uman 'eart than yer does abaht 'orses." "Don't be facetious, Sam. This chap in this book feels just like I do. He was on his way to a high cliff to jump into the sea when his girl ran after him and stopped him, just in time. By Jove! something like that might happen to me, y'know." "She'd 'ave run arfter 'im jus' the same if 'e'd bin goin' to a music 'all." "You unromantic little devil! How's the water in the river over here--very muddy?" "Not 'arf--an' ruddy cold." Just then, from close to the tent, as it seemed, a frightful wail of anguish rose and fell agonizingly, then died shudderingly away. "Good Heavens!" cried Bert, half rising in bed, and flinging his book down. "What's that?" Sam was much more startled by the novel falling than he was by the cry outside. "P'raps it's one of them blinkin' ghos'es wot comes ter people wots abaht ter die," he said. "Ain't it creepy?" Bert shivered slightly. It was a cool night. The stove was almost out; he hadn't much on--and there was no more wood. "Creepy! Ghastly, you mean. Somebody's being murdered. I know I oughtn't to say it, but I hope it's--no, I don't--he's done me no harm. I say, Sam, was there anything left in the flask? I'm simply frozen." Again the cry of horror split the night, this time a little farther off. Sam hastily rummaged in the "tuck-box" and produced the flask, which he threw across to Bert, who was about to tip it up to his lips, when a series of rapid and violent blows shook the wall of the tent, and a man's voice called: "Halloo! Halloo! in there. May I come in?" Sam scrambled to his feet and hurriedly untied the tent-flap, letting in a thick-set, man of medium height. He was a little past middle age, of rotund and comfortable appearance, with a well-trimmed, reddish-brown beard, and he wore a good tweed suit and cap. His eyes were big and blue, very trustful, and slightly wide open--obviously with absent-mindedness, not at all with lying. Bert recognized him immediately as a man called Trailey, who, with his wife and daughter, occupied a tent next but one to his own. "Good evening, Mr. Trailey," Bert said affably when he saw who the visitor was. "What on earth was that dreadful noise? You didn't see anyone being strangled outside, did you?"