“A cry pierced the hollow air. How can I describe it? It thrilled every nerve in my body. I can hear it now; it seemed as though all the intensity of a human heart was in it—it said, it shrieked as the cry of some pent-up force,—it said,— “‘Silas!’ “I knew the voice. It was a warning tone. I knew that dog’s tone of warning. I stepped back and listened again. “I heard a struggle down in the distance. Where was I? It came to me. I was on the border of a ledge of rocks. Below me was a pond. Had I taken a few steps more I would have gone over into the water. “I felt that the way led to a false projection over the water. I had been drawn toward a trap to destroy me. I felt the situation then as clearly as I can see it now. “My every nerve quivered with terror, but my will grew stronger than ever before. I never knew how strong or how weak I was till then. “As I stood listening, a fearful oath rose from the pond. Then all was still. I looked up to the sky. It was the only object that seemed friendly. The clouds parted below the hunter’s moon, and a wide silvery light swept over the scene. I was surely on a projecting edge of rock, or platform, over a pond. “Suddenly I heard a sound in the bushes. It was a patter of feet. A dog came bounding out of the savins toward me. He rose up, springing as it were into the air, shook his paws, and cried,—I can hear it now,— “‘Silas!’ “It was my old coach dog. “I hurried back to the road, followed by the dog. Was it a dream? What had happened? “At near midnight I came to my old friend’s farmhouse at Randolph, and roused the family. Before any one could speak I pointed to the dog. “‘Tell me, for heaven’s sake, what is that?’ I cried. “‘That is a dog,’ said my old friend, the farmer,—‘your old coach dog. What did you think it was? Where did you find him?’ “We went the next morning to the scene of my night’s adventure. One of the first things that we saw was the dead body of Searle, floating on the pond. [Illustration: SCENE IN OLD VIENNA.] “The light in the window of the Phantom inn had allured me to the edge of a broad, false precipice, and I was just about to fall over into the pond when my old coach dog’s warning word had saved me. The dog had evidently dragged his dark-minded master over the rocky cliff into the pond. “Searle had carried the window and light in his hand, and with covered feet had moved back to allure travellers. “‘Silas?’ Yes, I must answer that question. What became of him? I took him back to Albany with me. He was an old dog then, and used to repeat that word in his distress. He said it more than once on the day that he died.” Another story, related by Mr. Marlowe, which was quite appropriate to the place, was as follows:— THE GREAT CHESHIRE CHEESES.