"Dick, you are afraid of ghosts," said I; and while I spoke he uttered a cry and clung to my arm. A second later something brushed past my hand very quickly. I just saw it for an instant as it flitted past, and then the darkness swallowed it up. Dick blurted out this fable: the souls of dead drowned sailormen kept nightly tryst on Castle Down. "That was no spirit," said I. "Play the man, Dick. Did you ever meet a spirit that trod with the weight of a body?" I could hear the sound of feet rustling the grass beneath us. Dick listened with his hand to his ear. "The tread is very light," said he. "That is because it is a woman who treads." "No woman would be abroad here in this fog at this time," he protested. "Nevertheless, it was a woman; for I saw her, and her dress brushed against my hand. It was a woman, and you cried out at her; so that if there is any one else upon the watch to-night, it is very likely we shall have him upon our heels." That argument sobered him, and we went forward again without speaking to each other, and only halting now and again to listen. In a very short while we heard the sea booming upon the beach, and then Dick stepped forward yet more warily, feeling about with his hands. "There should be a fence hereabouts," said he, and the next moment I fell over it with a great clatter. A loud whistle sounded from the beach--another whistle answered behind us, and I heard the sound of a man running up from the sand. We both crouched in the grass close by the palisade, and again the fog saved us. I heard some one beating about in the grass with a stick, but he did not come near us, and at last he turned back to the sea. "You see," said Dick, "I told Lieutenant Clutterbuck the truth. The house is watched." "Devil a doubt of it," said I. "Do you go forward and see if you can get in." He came back to me in a little space of time, saying that the door was barred, and that he could see no light through any chink. He had stolen all round the house; he had rapped gently here and there at a window, but there was no one waking. "And what are we to do now?" said he. "If I make a clatter and rouse the house, we shall rouse Cullen's enemies, too." "It would not be wise to put them on the alert, the more particularly since Cullen Mayle may be here to-morrow. I will go back to the 'Palace' Inn, sleep the night there, and come over here boldly in the morning." And I got up and shouldered my valise again. But Dick stopped me. "I have a better plan than that," said he, "for George Glen is staying at the 'Palace' Inn. What if you slept in the house here to-night! I can come over early to-morrow and tell Miss Helen who you are, and why you have come." "But how am I to get into the house, without you rouse the household?" "There is a window. It is the window of Cullen Mayle's room. You could get through it with my help."