It was long past bedtime, and the lights were out in every shop and dwelling, when I started on my daring mission. The little lamps that glared through the fog at the street corners could scarcely be seen twenty feet away. I was so preoccupied that I frequently lost my direction in the mud and darkness. It seemed as if I had been traveling for hours, when at last I felt the big wall, and saw its dim bulk rising above me and stretching away into the night. Cautiously I groped along its base until my hands felt the iron bars of the gate. Then I stood for some moments leaning against them, quite out of breath. They were cold and wet, and chilled me to a shiver when I touched them. I peered toward the house but could see nothing. I listened, but could hear nothing except the beating of my own heart and the mournful sound of the pines whose loftier branches were stirring in the still air. Grasping the heavy bars I tried to climb the gate, but, as there were no projections on which it was possible to get a foothold, I found this an exhausting and difficult task. I climbed repeatedly several feet above the earth, only to lose my foothold and slide down again. Finally, by exerting all my strength, I succeeded in supporting myself with the edge of my boot upon a crossbar about half way up; then, taking a small rope from my pocket I threw one end of it over the gate, holding the other in my teeth. Tying it securely by a noose I climbed hand over hand to the top and then let myself down on the other side. I was quite exhausted by the effort (unaccustomed as I was to such burglarious enterprises) and my fingers were torn and bleeding from forcing a hold between the iron work and the wire screen. I remembered the gravel pathway, overgrown with grass, that led from the big gate to a front door. I groped about in the darkness until I felt the gravel under my feet. Then I moved cautiously along it, until I could dimly discern the outlines of the house. My nerves were so wrought up, while I stood there holding my breath to catch some sound from its gloomy interior, that I was near crying out in abject terror at every step. An owl, startled from the limb of a tree over my head, flew lazily into the upper air and across the thicket, disturbing other birds that set up a chattering protest. Stealthily I crept from window to window, but the blinds were closed fast. Finally I came to a door that seemed to open into the main part of the building. Desperate under the strain to which my nerves had been subjected, I knocked loudly on its upper panels. The sound echoed through the still house and the thickly wooded grounds around it. “God help me!” I whispered; “will that echo never cease?” It kept repeating itself from tree to tree, until I covered my ears to stop its weird reverberations. Then I heard a low threatening sound, deep and resonant as the lower tones of a great organ, that gradually grew louder until its volume