incongruous, yet distinctly pathetic, in theman's efforts to meet all far-fetched explanations of the mystery withcontempt, and at the same time in his stolid, unswerving investigationof it all. He nodded at me and made a gesture of farewell with his hand.That picture of him, standing in the sunshine with his big dogs,steadily watching us, remains with me to this day.
Dr. Silence led the way in among the twisted trunks, planted closelytogether in serried ranks, and I followed sharp at his heels. The momentwe were out of sight he turned and put down his gun against the roots ofa big tree, and I did likewise.
"We shall hardly want these cumbersome weapons of murder," he observed,with a passing smile.
"You are sure of your clue, then?" I asked at once, bursting withcuriosity, yet fearing to betray it lest he should think me unworthy.His own methods were so absolutely simple and untheatrical.
"I am sure of my clue," he answered gravely. "And I think we have comejust in time. You shall know in due course. For the present--be contentto follow and observe. And think, steadily. The support of your mindwill help me."
His voice had that quiet mastery in it which leads men to face deathwith a sort of happiness and pride. I would have followed him anywhereat that moment. At the same time his words conveyed a sense of dreadseriousness. I caught the thrill of his confidence; but also, in thisbroad light of day, I felt the measure of alarm that lay behind.
"You still have no strong impressions?" he asked. "Nothing happened inthe night, for instance? No vivid dreamings?"
He looked closely for my answer, I was aware.
"I slept almost an unbroken sleep. I was tremendously tired, you know,and, but for the oppressive heat--"
"Good! You still notice the heat, then," he said to himself, rather thanexpecting an answer. "And the lightning?" he added, "that lightning outof a clear sky--that flashing--did you notice _that_?"
I answered truly that I thought I had seen a flash during a moment ofwakefulness, and he then drew my attention to certain facts beforemoving on.
"You remember the sensation of warmth when you put the letter to yourforehead in the train; the heat generally in the house last evening,and, as you now mention, in the night. You heard, too, the Colonel'sstories about the appearances of fire in this wood and in the houseitself, and the way his brother and the gamekeeper came to their deathstwenty years ago."
I nodded, wondering what in the world it all meant.
"And you get no clue from these facts?" he asked, a trifle surprised.
I searched every corner of my mind and imagination for some inkling ofhis meaning, but was obliged to admit that I understood nothing so far.
"Never mind, you will later. And now," he added, "we will go over thewood and see what we can find."
His words explained to me something of his method. We were to keep ourminds alert and report to each other the least fancy that crossed thepicture-gallery of our thoughts. Then, just as we started, he turnedagain to me with a final warning.
"And, for your safety," he said earnestly, "imagine _now_--and for thatmatter, imagine always until we leave this place--imagine with theutmost keenness, that you are surrounded by a shell that protects you.Picture yourself inside a protective envelope, and build it up with themost intense imagination you can evoke. Pour the whole force of yourthought and will into it. Believe vividly all through this adventurethat such a shell, constructed of your thought, will and imagination,surrounds you completely, and that nothing can pierce it to attack."
He spoke with dramatic conviction, gazing hard at me as though toenforce his meaning, and then moved forward and began to pick his wayover the rough, tussocky ground into the wood. And meanwhile, knowingthe efficacy of his prescription, I adopted it to the best of myability.
The trees at once closed about us like the night. Their branches metoverhead in a continuous tangle, their stems crept closer and closer,the brambly undergrowth thickened and multiplied. We tore our trousers,scratched our hands, and our eyes filled with fine dust that made itmost difficult to avoid the clinging, prickly network of branches andcreepers. Coarse white grass that caught our feet like string grew hereand there in patches. It crowned the lumps of peaty growth that stuck uplike human heads, fantastically dressed, thrusting up at us out of theground with crests of dead hair. We stumbled and floundered among them.It was hard going, and I could well conceive it impossible to find a wayat all in the night-time. We jumped, when possible, from tussock totussock, and it seemed as though we were springing among heads on abattlefield, and that this dead white grass concealed eyes that turnedto stare as we passed.
Here and there the sunlight shot in with vivid spots of white light,dazzling the sight, but only making the surrounding gloom deeper bycontrast. And on two occasions we passed dark circular places in thegrass where fires had eaten their mark and left a ring of ashes. Dr.Silence pointed to them, but without comment and without pausing, andthe sight of them woke in me a singular realisation of the dread thatlay so far only just out of sight in this adventure.
It was exhausting work, and heavy going. We kept close together. Thewarmth, too, was extraordinary. Yet it did not seem the warmth of thebody due to violent exertion, but rather an inner heat of the mind thatlaid glowing hands of fire upon the heart and set the brain in a kind ofsteady blaze. When my companion found himself too far in advance, hewaited for me to come up. The place had evidently been untouched by handof man, keeper, forester or sportsman, for many a year; and my thoughts,as we advanced painfully, were not unlike the state of the wooditself--dark, confused, full of a haunting wonder and the shadow offear.
By this time all signs of the open field behind us were hid. No singlegleam penetrated. We might have been groping in the heart of someprimeval forest. Then, suddenly, the brambles and tussocks andstringlike grass came to an end; the trees opened out; and the groundbegan to slope upwards towards a large central mound. We had reached themiddle of the plantation, and before us stood the broken Druid stonesour host had mentioned. We walked easily up the little hill, between thesparser stems, and, resting upon one of the ivy-covered boulders, lookedround upon a comparatively open space, as large, perhaps, as a smallLondon Square.
Thinking of the ceremonies and sacrifices this rough circle ofprehistoric monoliths might have witnessed, I looked up into mycompanion's face with an unspoken question. But he read my thought andshook his head.
"Our mystery has nothing to do with these dead symbols," he said, "butwith something perhaps even more ancient, and of another countryaltogether."
"Egypt?" I said half under my breath, hopelessly puzzled, but recallinghis words in my bedroom.
He nodded. Mentally I still floundered, but he seemed intenselypreoccupied and it was no time for asking questions; so while his wordscircled unintelligibly in my mind I looked round at the scene before me,glad of the opportunity to recover breath and some measure of composure.But hardly had I time to notice the twisted and contorted shapes of manyof the pine trees close at hand when Dr. Silence leaned over and touchedme on the shoulder. He pointed down the slope. And the look I saw in hiseyes keyed up every nerve in my body to its utmost pitch.
A thin, almost imperceptible column of blue smoke was rising among thetrees some twenty yards away at the foot of the mound. It curled up andup, and disappeared from sight among the tangled branches overhead. Itwas scarcely thicker than the smoke from a small brand of burning wood.
"Protect yourself! Imagine your shell strongly," whispered the doctorsharply, "and follow me closely."
He rose at once and moved swiftly down the slope towards the smoke, andI followed, afraid to remain alone. I heard the soft crunching of oursteps on the pine needles. Over his shoulder I watched the thin bluespiral, without once taking my eyes off it. I hardly know how todescribe the peculiar sense of vague horror inspired in me by the sightof that streak of smoke pencilling its way upwards among the dark trees.And the sensation of increasing heat as we approached was phenomenal. Itwas like walking towards a glowing yet invis
ible fire.
As we drew nearer his pace slackened. Then he stopped and pointed, and Isaw a small circle of burnt grass upon the ground. The tussocks wereblackened and smouldering, and from the centre rose this line of smoke,pale, blue, steady. Then I noticed a movement of the atmosphere besideus, as if the warm air were rising and the cooler air rushing in to takeits place: a little centre of wind in the stillness. Overhead the boughsstirred and trembled where the smoke disappeared. Otherwise, not a treesighed, not a sound made itself heard. The wood was still as agraveyard. A horrible idea came to me that the course of nature wasabout to change without warning, had changed a little already, that thesky would drop, or the surface of the earth crash inwards like a brokenbubble. Something, certainly, reached up to the citadel of my reason,causing its throne to shake.
John Silence moved forward again. I could not