He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny garden scene, the frame for a stunning and brutal personality. The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place where the little flowers he studied cried to heaven for his blood. “You know I must not turn round,” said the lady; “every afternoon till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street.” Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier resolute to accept these outrageous riddles without surprise. “It is almost six,” he said; and even as he spoke the barbaric copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf. “That makes the third year I have waited,” she cried. “This is an anniversary. The waiting almost makes one wish the frightful thing would happen once and for all.” And even as she spoke, a sudden rending cry broke the stillness. From low down on the pavement of the dim street (it was already twilight) a voice cried out with a raucous and merciless distinctness: “Major Brown, Major Brown, where does the jackal dwell?” Brown was decisive and silent in action. He strode to the front door and looked out. There was no sign of life in the blue gloaming of the street, where one or two lamps were beginning to light their lemon sparks. On returning, he found the lady in green trembling. “It is the end,” she cried, with shaking lips; “it may be death for both of us. Whenever--” But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another hoarse proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate. “Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?” Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again he was frustrated; there was no figure in sight, and the street was far too long and empty for the shouter to have run away. Even the rational Major was a little shaken as he returned in a certain time to the drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the terrific voice came: “Major Brown, Major Brown, where did--” Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time--in time to see something which at first glance froze the blood. The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on the pavement. The next moment the pale Major understood. It was the head of a man thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next moment, again, it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the lady. “Where's your coal-cellar?” he said, and stepped out into the passage. She looked at him with wild grey eyes. “You will not go down,” she cried, “alone, into the dark hole, with that beast?”