“Toward Schooley’s,” Jack muttered to himself. “That’s all right. But how the dickens did she know it was here?” Mamie, meanwhile, looking neither to the right nor left, hurried along the road as fast as her feet would carry her. It was hard and rutted and anything but easy walking, yet the girl seemed to take no account of the roughness of the way, and Jack, panting and stumbling along behind, marvelled at the ease with which she hastened on. The sun had not yet risen, and gray cold mist of the morning still lingered among the trees. To the superstitious Irishman there seemed to be something ghostly and supernatural in the air; he felt that some mysterious and unseen influence was at work, and the thought brought a cold sweat out across his forehead. Yet never for an instant did he think of trying to stop her or of turning back himself. Then suddenly, from afar off, Jack’s ears caught the sound of a faint singing or crying, that rose and fell in a sort of weird cadence, impossible to describe. “What’s that?” he cried, and stopped short; but instead of pausing, Mamie broke into a run, and would have been out of sight in a moment had not Jack followed at top speed. In the end, his strength and agility told even against the strange spirit that possessed her, and he gained her side just as they reached the edge of a clearing, in the midst of which stood an old stone house. “Good God! It’s afire!” gasped Jack, and, indeed, a black swirl of smoke was pouring from the broken windows at the front of the house, lighted redly here and there from instant to instant by a tongue of flame. “Wait, Mamie,” he added, grasping her arm as she started forward. “What ’r you goin’ t’ do?” “He’s there!” Mamie cried, shaking him away, and without another word, she started toward the house. Jack, gritting his teeth tight together, followed her. There was need of courage, for that weird sing-song chanting still persisted, and as they neared the house, a strange figure appeared around the corner—a squat, deformed figure, surmounted by a hideous face and great shock of dirty hair. It was dancing in a clumsy and ungainly fashion and was emitting from time to time the hoarse shouting which had set Jack’s nerves on edge. [Illustration: “THEN, WITH A HOARSE YELL OF RAGE, HURLED HIMSELF UPON THEM.”] For an instant, the fellow did not perceive them; then, as his bloodshot eyes rested upon them, he stood for a breath as though carved in stone, and then, with a hoarse yell of rage, hurled himself upon them.