I remember I ate a very large supper that night, to the happy reassurance of Uncle Jenico. That suffocating tightness of the midriff, which anxiety brings, seems to expand, in its reaction, to a quite exaggerated emptiness. Have we not all had that experience? What meals we’ve made after a visit to the dentist’s! Who would have thought that this Berserker, dashing his beard with wine and roaring contempt of wounds and death, was the same individual who in the morning cowered sick-cropped in Mr. Forceps’s waiting-room? The thought of having vindicated, and proved, and so honourably acquitted one’s self of further responsibility to a much-dreaded task, is one of the most appetizing reflections in the world. And besides, I had arrears to make up. For the moment, I was quite congratulatory to Fate on its having found so strong an instrument as myself to help it with its schemes. I even, I think, took credit for that brilliant conception of shifting the whole burden as soon as possible upon Mr. Sant’s shoulders. Through the glaze of repletion I saw, bedimmed, and even perhaps glorified, the figures of two ghostseers scuttling home that afternoon, with their tails between their legs, before the vision of a vengeance they had evoked. Now I laughed and snapped my fingers at the shadow of that vengeance left standing outside the window. But it came to be just a leetle a different matter when it fell evening, and when shadow enwrapped the shadow, and I must go out into the first, perhaps after all to find the second also claiming and involving me. We were still, Harry and I, bound unrelieved to our secret, and must be so till late night, at least. For Mr. Sant was to return from London but in time to keep his evening engagement at the church, or, rather, the schoolrooms adjoining--to which, since their completion, the lectures had been relegated--and no opportunity could be ours to speak with him till after the entertainment. In the meanwhile, we had arranged to meet at the Flask, when I went to fetch Joshua, that Harry might be introduced; and about half-past seven I set out. I confess I looked over my shoulder more than once as I sped for the inn. The night was very black, with a sense of creeping inquisitive mists in it. I had brought a lantern for myself and one for Joshua; but for some reason I did not want to light them as yet. Perhaps it was the thought of my moving a marked object through the gloom which prevented me. However, I reached my destination without mishap, and finding Harry already waiting for me there, took him up at once to our visitor’s bedroom.