Right to the embrasured crest it was sharply outlined by the brilliant moon--and as I looked I felt my heart leap suddenly; and then, almost holding my breath, I crouched, distrusting the very shadows which afforded me shelter. For leaning out through one of the embrasures at the top of the tower, I clearly saw the figure of a man! At first so whitely was his face lighted up by the moon that I had no doubt of the figure being that of a man, but he remained so still, seeming always to look in a fixed way in the same direction, that now, momentarily I doubted, until a slight movement betrayed the fact that my first impression had been correct. Who he was I could not possibly tell from that distance, but of his occupation I became assured at the moment that he moved; for the moonlight glittered brightly on the lenses of the binoculars through which he had been surveying some point visible only from that elevation. Still I watched, and again I saw the man of the tower raise his glasses and resume his scrutiny of that distant object which so closely engaged his attention. Remembering that a patch of light touched the top of the wall, spearlike, at the point where I must cross it in order to reach the fir tree, I abandoned my former precautions and hurried through the tangled weeds towards the fir which was my sailing mark. Hastily I scrambled up the natural ladder formed by the vine, and without pause climbed down again to the edge of the dry ditch beyond. To have looked back over the wall would have been useless, since from that point the tower would have been invisible. Nor indeed had I any desire to pause in my precarious journey. That I had avoided man-traps in that hurried retreat through the weeds, I knew not whether to ascribe to good luck or to the fact that none were set there, but now in the more open ground, thickly bestrewn, however, with clumps of undergrowth, I resumed all my old vigilance, and carefully retraced the path, so well as I could remember it, by which I had first arrived at the friendly fir. When at last I found myself once more upon the highroad and free of the ground of Friar's Park, I stood a while and wondered to find myself bathed in perspiration. There was something very eerie in the thought that I had explored those numerous rooms of the deserted house and had moreover encircled the entire building habitable and otherwise, whilst that mysterious watcher all the time had been lurking up there in the tower! I wondered what his survey portended. If it signified that he had detected my presence at the moment that I had left the house, why was his gaze focused upon the distance and not upon the surrounding grounds? If he had not seen or heard me, then I must compliment myself upon a very successful burglarious feat. But assuming the latter explanation to be the correct one, how much darker became the mystery of the man's presence and purpose. Who was he? And what did he do at this hour in deserted Friar's Park?