The Mystery of Cloomber

I John Fothergill West, student of law in the University of St. Andrews, have endeavoured in the ensuing pages to lay my statement before the public in a concise and business-like fashion.
It is not my wish to achieve literary success, nor have I any desire by the graces of my style, or by the artistic ordering of my incidents, to throw a deeper shadow over the strange passages of which I shall have to speak. My highest ambition is that those who know something of the matter should, after reading my account, be able to conscientiously indorse it without finding a single paragraph in which I have either added to or detracted from the truth.
Should I attain this result, I shall rest amply satisfied with the outcome of my first, and probably my last, venture in literature.
It was my intention to write out the sequence of events in due order, depending on trustworthy hearsay when I was describing that which was beyond my own personal knowledge. I have now, however, through the kind cooperation of friends, hit upon a plan which promises to be less onerous to me and more satisfactory to the reader. This is nothing less than to make use of the various manuscripts which I have by me bearing upon the subject, and to add to them the first-hand evidence contributed by those who had the best opportunities of knowing Major-General J. B. Heatherstone.
In pursuance of this design I shall lay before the public the testimony of Israel Stakes, formerly coachman at Cloomber Hall, and of John Easterling, F.R.C.P. Edin., now practicing at Stranraer, in Wigtownshire. To these I shall add a verbatim account extracted from the journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events which occurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of ‘41 towards the end of the first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Terada defile, and of the death of the man Ghoolab Shah.
To myself I reserve the duty of filling up all the gaps and chinks which may be left in the narrative. By this arrangement I have sunk from the position of an author to that of a compiler, but on the other hand my work has ceased to be a story and has expanded into a series of affidavits.
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
My Father, John Hunter West, was a well-known Oriental and Sanskrit scholar, and his name is still of weight with those who are interested in such matters. He it was who first after Sir William Jones called attention to the great value of early Persian literature, and his translations from the Hafiz and from Ferideddin Atar have earned the warmest commendations from the Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, of Vienna, and other distinguished Continental critics.
In the issue of the Orientalisches_Scienzblatt for January, 1861, he is described as ”Der_beruhmte_und_sehr_gelhernte_Hunter_West_von Edinburgh” —a passage which I well remember that he cut out and stowed away, with a pardonable vanity, among the most revered family archives.
He had been brought up to be a solicitor, or Writer to the Signet, as it is termed in Scotland, but his learned hobby absorbed so much of his time that he had little to devote to the pursuit of his profession.
When his clients were seeking him at his chambers in George Street, he was buried in the recesses of the Advocates’ Library, or poring over some moldy manuscript at the Philosophical Institution, with his brain more exercised over the code which Menu propounded six hundred years before the birth of Christ than over the knotty problems of Scottish law in the nineteenth century. Hence it can hardly be wondered at that as his learning accumulated his practice dissolved, until at the very moment when he had attained the zenith of his celebrity he had also reached the nadir of his fortunes.
There being no chair of Sanscrit in any of his native universities, and no demand anywhere for the only mental wares which he had to dispose of, we should have been forced to retire into genteel poverty, consoling ourselves with the aphorisms and precepts of Firdousi, Omar Khayyam, and others of his Eastern favourites, had it not been for the kindness and liberality of his half-brother William Farintosh, the Laird of Branksome, in Wigtownshire.
This William Farintosh was the proprietor of a landed estate, the acreage which bore, unfortunately, a most disproportional relation to its value, for it formed the bleakest and most barren tract of land in the whole of a bleak and barren shire. As a bachelor, however, his expenses had been small, and he had contrived from the rents of his scattered cottages, and the sale of the Galloway nags, which he bred upon the moors, not only to live as a laird should, but to put by a considerable sum in the bank.
We had heard little from our kinsman during the days of our comparative prosperity, but just as we were at our wit’s end, there came a letter like a ministering angel, giving us assurance of sympathy and succour. In it the Laird of Branksome told us that one of his lungs had been growing weaker for some time, and that Dr. Easterling, of Stranraer, had strongly advised him to spend the few years which were left to him in some more genial climate. He had determined, therefore to set out for the South of Italy, and he begged that we should take up our residence at Branksome in his absence, and that my father should act as his land steward and agent at a salary which placed us above all fear of want.
Our mother had been dead for some years, so that there were only myself, my father, and my sister Esther to consult, and it may be readily imagined that it did not take us long to decide upon the acceptance of the laird’s generous offer. My father started for Wigtown that very night, while Esther and I followed a few days afterwards, bearing with us two potato-sacksful of learned books, and such other of our household effects that were worth the trouble and expense of transport.

Chapter I: “The Hegira of the Wests from Edinburgh”

Branksome might have appeared a poor dwelling-place when compared with the house of an English squire, but to us, after our long residence in stuffy apartments, it was of regal magnificence.
The building was broad-spread and low, with red-tiled roof, diamond-paned windows, and a profusion of dwelling rooms with smoke-blackened ceilings and oaken wainscots. In front was a small lawn, girt round with a thin fringe of haggard and ill grown beeches, all gnarled and withered from the effects of the sea-spray. Behind lay the scattered hamlet of Branksome-Bere—a dozen cottages at most— inhabited by rude fisher-folk who looked upon the laird as their natural protector.
To the west was the broad, yellow beach and the Irish Sea, while in all other directions the desolate moors, greyish-green in the foreground and purple in the distance, stretched away in long, low curves to the horizon.
Very bleak and lonely it was upon this Wigtown coast. A man might walk many a weary mile and never see a living thing except the white, heavy-flapping kittiwakes, which screamed and cried to each other with their shrill, sad voices.
Very lonely and very bleak! Once out of sight of Branksome and there was no sign of the works of man save only where the high, white tower of Cloomber Hall shot up, like a headstone of some giant grave, from amid the firs and larches which girt it round.
This great house, a mile or more from our dwelling, had been built by a wealthy Glasgow merchant of strange tastes and lonely habits, but at the time of our arrival it had been untenanted for many years, and stood with weather-blotched walls and vacant, staring windows looking blankly out over the hill side.
Empty and mildewed, it served only as a landmark to the fishermen, for they had found by experience that by keeping the laird’s chimney and the white tower of Cloomber in a line they could steer their way through the ugly reef which raises its jagged back, like that of some sleeping monster, above the troubled waters of the wind-swept bay.
To this wild spot it was that Fate had brought my father, my sister, and myself. For us its loneliness had no terrors. After the hubbub and bustle of a great city, and the weary task of upholding appearances upon a slender income, there was a grand, soul-soothing serenity in the long skyline and the eager air. Here at least there was no neighbour to pry and chatter.
The laird had left his phaeton and two ponies behind him, with the aid of which my father and I would go the round of the estate doing such light duties as fall to an agent, or “factor” as it was there called, while our gentle Esther looked to our household needs, and brightened the dark old building.
Such was our simple, uneventful existence, until the summer night when an unlooked-for incident occurred which proved to be the herald of those strange doings which I have taken up my pen to describe.
It had been my habit to pull out of an evening in the laird’s skiff and to catch a few whiting which might serve for our supper. On this well-remembered occasion my sister came with me, sitting with her book in the stern-sheets of the boat, while I hung my lines over the bows.
The sun had sunk down behind the rugged Irish coast, but a long bank of flushed cloud still marked the spot, and cast a glory upon the waters. The whole broad ocean was seamed and scarred with crimson streaks. I had risen in the boat, and was gazing round in delight at the broad panorama of shore and sea and sky, when my sister plucked at my sleeve with a little, sharp cry of surprise.
“See, John,” she cried, “there is a light in Cloomber Tower!”
I turned my head and stared back at the tall, white turret which peeped out above the belt of trees. As I gazed I distinctly saw at one of the windows the glint of a light, which suddenly vanished, and then shone out once more from another higher up. There it flickered for some time, and finally flashed past two successive windows underneath before the trees obscured our view of it. It was clear that some one bearing a lamp or a candle had climbed up the tower stairs and had then returned into the body of the house.
“Who in the world can it be?” I exclaimed, speaking rather to myself than to Esther, for I could see by the surprise upon her face that she had no solution to offer. “Maybe some of the folk from Branksome-Bere have wanted to look over the place.”
My sister shook her head.
“There is not one of them would dare to set foot within the avenue gates,” she said. “Besides, John, the keys are kept by the house-agent at Wigtown. Were they ever so curious, none of our people could find their way in”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
When I reflected upon the massive door and ponderous shutters which guarded the lower storey of Cloomber, I could not but admit the force of my sister’s objection. The untimely visitor must either have used considerable violence in order to force his way in, or he must have obtained possession of the keys.
Piqued by the little mystery, I pulled for the beach, with the determination to see for myself who the intruder might be, and what were his intentions. Leaving my sister at Branksome, and summoning Seth Jamieson, an old man-o’-war’s-man and one of the stoutest of the fishermen, I set off across the moor with him through the gathering darkness.
“It hasna a guid name after dark, yon hoose,” remarked my companion, slackening his pace perceptibly as I explained to him the nature of our errand. “It’s no for naething that him wha owns it wunna gang within a Scotch mile o’t.”
“Well, Seth, there is someone who has no fears about going into it,” said I, pointing to the great, white building which flickered up in front of us through the gloom.
The light which I had observed from the sea was moving backwards and forward past the lower floor windows, the shutters of which had been removed. I could now see that a second fainter light followed a few paces behind the other. Evidently two individuals, the one with a lamp and the other with a candle or rushlight, were making a careful examination of tile building.
“Let ilka man blaw his ain parritch,” said Seth Jamieson doggedly, coming to a dead stop. “What is it tae us if a wraith or a bogle minds tae tak’ a fancy tae Cloomber? It’s no canny tae meddle wi’ such things.”
“Why, man,” I cried, “you don’t suppose a wraith came here in a gig? What are those lights away yonder by the avenue gates?”
“The lamps o’ a gig, sure enough!” exclaimed my companion in a less lugubrious voice. “Let’s steer for it, Master West, and speer where she hails frae.”
By this time night had closed in save for a single long, narrow slit in the westward. Stumbling across the moor together, we made our way into the Wigtown Road, at the point where the high stone pillars mark the entrance to the Cloomber avenue. A tall dog-cart stood in front of the gateway, the horse browsing upon the thin border of grass which skirted the road.
“It’s a’ richt!” said Jamieson, taking a close look at the deserted vehicle. “I ken it weel. It belongs tae Maister McNeil, the factor body frae Wigtown—him wha keeps the keys.”
“Then we may as well have speech with him now that we are here,” I answered. “They are coming down, if I am not mistaken.”
As I spoke we heard the slam of the heavy door and within a few minutes two figures, the one tall and angular, the other short and thick came towards us through the darkness. They were talking so earnestly that they did not observe us until they had passed through the avenue gate.
“Good evening, Mr. McNeil,” said I, stepping forward and addressing the Wigtown factor, with whom I had some slight acquaintance.
The smaller of the two turned his face towards me as I spoke, and showed me that I was not mistaken in his identity, but his taller companion sprang back and showed every sign of violent agitation.
“What is this, McNeil?” I heard him say, in a gasping, choking voice. “Is this your promise? What is the meaning of it?”
“Don’t be alarmed, General! Don’t be alarmed!” said the little fat factor in a soothing fashion, as one might speak to a frightened child. “This is young Mr. Fothergill West, of Branksome, though what brings him up here tonight is more than I can understand. However, as you are to be neighbours, I can’t do better than take the opportunity to introduce you to each other. Mr. West, this is General Heatherstone, who is about to take a lease of Cloomber Hall.”
I held out my hand to the tall man, who look it in a hesitating, half-reluctant fashion.
“I came up,” I explained, “because I saw your lights in the windows, and I bought that something might be wrong. I am very glad I did so, since it has given me the chance of making the general’s acquaintance.”
Whilst I was talking, I was conscious that the new tenant of Cloomber Hall was peering at me very closely through the darkness. As I concluded, he stretched out a long, tremulous arm, and turned the gig-lamp in such a way as to throw a flood of light upon my face.
“Good Heavens, McNeil!” he cried, in the same quivering voice as before, “the fellow’s as brown as chocolate. He’s not an Englishman. You’re not an Englishman—you, sir?”
“I’m a Scotchman, born and bred,” said I, with an inclination to laugh, which was only checked by my new acquaintance’s obvious terror.
“A Scotchman, eh?” said he, with a sigh of relief. “It’s all one nowadays. You must excuse me, Mr.—Mr. West. I’m nervous, infernally nervous. Come along, McNeil, we must be back in Wigtown in less than an hour. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night!”
The two clambered into their places; the factor cracked his whip, and the high dog-cart clattered away through the darkness, casting a brilliant tunnel of yellow light on either side of it, until the rumble of its wheels died away in the distance.
“What do you think of our new neighbour, Jamieson?” I asked, after a long silence.
“‘Deed, Mr. West, he seems, as he says himsel’, to be vera nervous. Maybe his conscience is oot o’ order.”
“His liver, more likely,” said I. “He looks as if he had tried his constitution a bit. But it’s blowing chill, Seth, my lad, and it’s time both of us were indoors.”
I bade my companion good-night, and struck off across the moors for the cheery, ruddy light which marked the parlour windows of Branksome.

Chapter II: “Of the Strange Manner in Which a Tenant Came to Cloomber”

There was, as may well be imagined, much stir amongst our small community at the news that the Hall was to be inhabited once more, and considerable speculation as to the new tenants, and their object in choosing this particular part of the country for their residence.
It speedily became apparent that, whatever their motives might be, they had definitely determined upon a lengthy stay, for relays of plumbers and of joiners came down from Wigtown, and there was hammering and repairing going on from morning till night.
It was surprising how quickly the signs of the wind and weather were effaced, until the great, square-set house was all as spick-and-span as though it had been erected yesterday. There were abundant signs that money was no consideration to General Heatherstone, and that it was not on the score of retrenchment that he had taken up his abode among us.
“It may be that he is devoted to study,” suggested my father, as we discussed the question round the breakfast table. “Perhaps he has chosen this secluded spot to finish some magnum opus upon which he is engaged. If that is the case I should be happy to let him have the run of my library.”
Esther and I laughed at the grandiloquent manner in which he spoke of the two potato-sacksful of books.
“It may be as you say,” said I, “but the general did not strike me during our short interview as being a man who was likely to have any very pronounced literary tastes. If I might hazard a guess, I should say that he is here upon medical advice, in the hope that the complete quiet and fresh air may restore his shattered nervous system. If you had seen how he glared at me, and the twitching of his fingers, you would have thought it needed some restoring.”
“I do wonder whether he has a wife and a family,” said my sister. “Poor souls, how lonely they will be! Why, excepting ourselves, there is not a family that they could speak to for seven miles and more.”
“General Heatherstone is a very distinguished soldier,” remarked my father.
“Why, papa, however came you to know anything about him?”
“Ah, my dears,” said my father, smiling at us over his coffee-cup, “you were laughing at my library just now, but you see it may be very useful at times.” As he spoke he took a red-covered volume from a shelf and turned over the pages. “This is an Indian Army List of three years back,” he explained, “and here is the very gentleman we want-‘Heatherstone, J. B., Commander of the Bath,’ my dears, and ‘V.C.’, think of that, ‘V.C.’—‘formerly colonel in the Indian Infantry, 41st Bengal Foot, but now retired with the rank of major-general.’ In this other column is a record of his services—‘capture of Ghuznee and defense of Jellalabad, Sobraon 1848, Indian Mutiny and reduction of Oudh. Five times mentioned in dispatches.’ I think, my dears, that we have cause to be proud of our new neighbour.”
“It doesn’t mention there whether he is married or not, I suppose?” asked Esther.
“No,” said my father, wagging his white head with a keen appreciation of his own humour. “It doesn’t include that under the heading of ‘daring actions’—though it very well might, my dear, it very well might.”
All our doubts, however, upon this head were very soon set at rest, for on the very day that the repairing and the furnishing had been completed I had occasion to ride into Wigtown, and I met upon the way a carriage which was bearing General Heatherstone and his family to their new home. An elderly lady, worn and sickly-looking, was by his side, and opposite him sat a young fellow about my own age and a girl who appeared to be a couple of years younger.
I raised my hat, and was about to pass them, when the general shouted to his coachman to pull up, and held out his hand to me. I could see now in the daylight that his face, although harsh and stern, was capable of assuming a not unkindly expression.
“How are you, Mr. Fothergill West?” he cried. “I must apologize to you if I was a little brusque the other night—you will excuse an old soldier who has spent the best part of his life in harness—All the same, you must confess that you are rather dark-skinned for a Scotchman.”
“We have a Spanish strain in our blood,” said I, wondering at his recurrence to the topic.
“That would, of course, account for it,” he remarked. “My dear,” to his wife, “allow me to introduce Mr. Fothergill West to you. This is my son and my daughter. We have come here in search of rest, Mr. West —complete rest.”
“And you could not possibly have come to a better place,” said I.
“Oh, you think so?” he answered. “I suppose it is very quiet indeed, and very lonely. You might walk through these country lanes at night, I dare say, and never meet a soul, eh?”
“Well, there are not many about after dark,” I said.
“And you are not much troubled with vagrants or wandering beggars, eh? Not many tinkers or tramps or rascally gipsies—no vermin of that sort about?”
“I find it rather cold,” said Mrs. Heatherstone, drawing her thick sealskin mantle tighter round her figure. “We are detaining Mr. West, too.”
“So we are, my dear, so we are. Drive on, coachman. Good-day, Mr. West.”
The carriage rattled away towards the Hall, and I trotted thoughtfully onwards to the little country metropolis.
As I passed up the High Street, Mr. McNeil ran out from his office and beckoned to me to stop.
“Our new tenants have gone out,” he said. “They drove over this morning.”
“I met them on the way,” I answered.
As I looked down at the little factor, I could see that his face was flushed and that he bore every appearance of having had an extra glass.
“Give me a real gentleman to do business with,” he said, with a burst of laughter. “They understand me and I understand them. ‘What shall I fill it up for?’ says the general, taking a blank cheque out o’ his pouch and laying it on the table. ‘Two hundred,’ says I, leaving a bit o’ a margin for my own time and trouble.”
“I thought that the landlord had paid you for that,” I remarked.
“Aye, aye, but it’s well to have a bit margin. He filled it up and threw it over to me as if it had been an auld postage stamp. That’s the way business should be done between honest men—though it wouldna do if one was inclined to take an advantage. Will ye not come in, Mr. West, and have a taste of my whisky?”
“No, thank you” said I, “I have business to do.”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“Well, well, business is the chief thing. It’s well not to drink in the morning, too. For my own part, except a drop before breakfast to give me an appetite, and maybe a glass, or even twa, afterwards to promote digestion, I never touch spirits before noon. What d’ye think o’ the general, Mr. West?”
“Why, I have hardly had an opportunity of judging,” I answered.
Mr. McNeil tapped his forehead with his forefinger.
“That’s what I think of him,” he said in a confidential whisper, shaking his head at me. “He’s gone, sir, gone, in my estimation. Now what would you take to be a proof of madness, Mr. West?”
“Why, offering a blank cheque to a Wigtown house-agent,” said I.
“Ah, you’re aye at your jokes. But between oorsel’s now, if a man asked ye how many miles it was frae a seaport, and whether ships come there from the East, and whether there were tramps on the road, and whether it was against the lease for him to build a high wall round the grounds, what would ye make of it, eh?”
“I should certainly think him eccentric,” said I.
“If every man had his due, our friend would find himsel’ in a house with a high wall round the grounds, and that without costing him a farthing,” said the agent.
“Where then?” I asked, humouring his joke.
“Why, in the Wigtown County Lunatic Asylum,” cried the little man, with a bubble of laughter, in the midst of which I rode on my way, leaving him still chuckling over his own facetiousness.
The arrival of the new family at Cloomber Hall had no perceptible effect in relieving the monotony of our secluded district, for instead of entering into such simple pleasures as the country had to offer, or interesting themselves, as we had hoped, in our attempts to improve the lot of our poor crofters and fisherfolk, they seemed to shun all observation, and hardly ever to venture beyond the avenue gates.
We soon found, too, that the factor’s words as to the inclosing of the grounds were founded upon fact, for gangs of workmen were kept hard at work from early in the morning until late at night in erecting a high, wooden fence round the whole estate.
When this was finished and topped with spikes, Cloomber Park became impregnable to any one but an exceptionally daring climber. It was as if the old soldier had been so imbued with military ideas that, like my Uncle Toby, he could not refrain even in times of peace from standing upon the defensive.
Stranger still, he had victualled the house as if for a siege, for Begbie, the chief grocer of Wigtown, told me himself in a rapture of delight and amazement that the general had sent him an order for hundreds of dozens of every imaginable potted meat and vegetable.
It may be imagined that all these unusual incidents were not allowed to pass without malicious comment. Over the whole countryside and as far away as the English border there was nothing but gossip about the new tenants of Cloomber Hall and the reasons which had led them to come among us.
The only hypothesis, however, which the bucolic mind could evolve, was that which had already occurred to Mr. McNeil, the factor—namely, that the old general and his family were one and all afflicted with madness, or, as an alternative conclusion, that he had committed some heinous offence and was endeavouring to escape the consequences of his misdeeds.
These were both natural suppositions under the circumstances, but neither of them appeared to me to commend itself as a true explanation of the facts.
It is true that General Heatherstone’s behaviour on the occasion of our first interview was such as to suggest some suspicion of mental disease, but no man could have been more reasonable or more courteous than he had afterwards shown himself to be.
Then, again, his wife and children led the same secluded life that he did himself, so that the reason could not be one peculiar to his own health.
As to the possibility of his being a fugitive from justice, that theory was even more untenable. Wigtownshire was bleak and lonely, but it was not such an obscure corner of the world that a well-known soldier could hope to conceal himself there, nor would a man who feared publicity set every one’s tongue wagging as the general had done.
On the whole, I was inclined to believe that the true solution of the enigma lay in his own allusion to the love of quiet, and that they had taken shelter here with an almost morbid craving for solitude and repose. We very soon had an instance of the great lengths to which this desire for isolation would carry them.
My father had come down one morning with the weight of a great determination upon his brow.
“You must put on your pink frock today, Esther,” said he, “and you, John, you must make yourself smart, for I have determined that the three of us shall drive round this afternoon and pay our respects to Mrs. Heatherstone and the general.”
“A visit to Cloomber,” cried Esther, clapping her hands.
“I am here,” said my father, with dignity, “not only as the laird’s factor, but also as his kinsman. In that capacity I am convinced that he would wish me to call upon these newcomers and offer them any politeness which is in our power. At present they must feel lonely and friendless. What says the great Firdousi? ‘The choicest ornaments to a man’s house are his friends.’”
My sister and I knew by experience that when the old man began to justify his resolution by quotations from the Persian poets there was no chance of shaking it. Sure enough that afternoon saw the phaeton at the door, with my father perched upon the seat, with his second-best coat on and a pair of new driving-gloves.
“Jump in, my dears,” he cried, cracking his whip briskly, “we shall show the general that he has no cause to be ashamed of his neighbours.”
Alas! Pride always goes before a fall. Our well-fed ponies and shining harness were not destined that day to impress the tenants of Cloomber with a sense of our importance.
We had reached the avenue gate, and I was about to get out and open it, when our attention was arrested by a very large wooden placard, which was attached to one of the trees in such a manner that no one could possibly pass without seeing it. On the white surface of this board was printed in big, black letters the following hospitable inscription:
      GENERAL AND MRS. HEATHERSTONE
	              HAVE NO WISH
	              TO INCREASE
	    THE CIRCLE OF THEIR ACQUAINTANCE.
We all sat gazing at this announcement for some moments in silent astonishment. Then Esther and I, tickled by the absurdity of the thing, burst out laughing, but my father pulled the ponies’ heads round, and drove home with compressed lips and the cloud of much wrath upon his brow. I have never seen the good man so thoroughly moved, and I am convinced that his anger did not arise from any petty feeling of injured vanity upon his own part, but from the thought that a slight had been offered to the Laird of Branksome, whose dignity he represented.

Chapter III: “Of Our Further Acquaintance with Major-General J. B. Heatherstone”

If I had any personal soreness on account of this family snub, it was a very passing emotion, and one which was soon effaced from my mind.
It chanced that on the very next day after the episode I had occasion to pass that way, and stopped to have another look at the obnoxious placard. I was standing staring at it and wondering what could have induced our neighbours to take such an outrageous step, when I became suddenly aware of a sweet, girlish face which peeped out at me from between the bars of the gate, and of a white hand which eagerly beckoned me to approach. As I advanced to her I saw that it was the same young lady whom I had seen in the carriage.
“Mr. West,” she said, in a quick whisper, glancing from side to side as she spoke in a nervous, hasty manner, “I wish to apologize to you for the indignity to which you and your family were subjected yesterday. My brother was in the avenue and saw it all, but he is powerless to interfere. I assure you, Mr. West, that if that hateful thing,” pointing up at the placard, “has given you any annoyance, it has given my brother and myself far more.”
“Why, Miss Heatherstone,” said I, putting the matter off with a laugh, “Britain is a free country, and if a man chooses to warn off visitors from his premises there is no reason why he should not.”
“It is nothing less than brutal,” she broke out, with a petulant stamp of the foot. “To think that your sister, too, should have such a unprovoked insult offered to her! I am ready to sink with shame at the very thought.”
“Pray do not give yourself one moment’s uneasiness upon the subject,” said I earnestly, for I was grieved at her evident distress. “I am sure that your father has some reason to us for taking this step.”
“Heaven knows he has!” she answered, with ineffable sadness in her voice, “and yet I think it would be more manly to face a danger than to fly from it. However, he knows best, and it is impossible for us to judge. But who is this?” she exclaimed, anxiously, peering up the dark avenue. “Oh, it is my brother Mordaunt. Mordaunt,” she said, as the young man approached us. “I have been apologizing to Mr. West for what happened yesterday, in your name as well as my own.”
“I am very, very glad to have the opportunity of doing it in person,” said he courteously. “I only wish that I could see your sister and your father as well as yourself, to tell them how sorry I am. I think you had better run up to the house, little one, for it’s getting near tiffin-time. No—don’t you go Mr. West. I want to have a word with you.”
Miss Heatherstone waved her hand to me with a bright smile, and tripped up the avenue, while her brother unbolted the gate, and, passing through, closed it again, locking it upon the outside.
“I’ll have a stroll down the road with you, if you have no objection. Have a manilla.” He drew a couple of cheroots from his pocket and handed one to me. “You’ll find they are not bad,” he said. “I became a connoisseur in tobacco when I was in India. I hope I am not interfering with your business in coming along with you?”
“Not at all,” I answered “I am very glad to have your company.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” said my companion. “This is the first time that I have been outside the grounds since we have been down here.”
“And your sister?”
“She has never been out, either,” he answered. “I have given the governor the slip to-day, but he wouldn’t half like it if he knew. It’s a whim of his that we should keep ourselves entirely to ourselves. At least, some people would call it a whim, for my own part I have reason to believe that he has solid grounds for all that he does—though perhaps in this matter he may be a little too exacting.”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“You must surely find it very lonely,” said I. “Couldn’t you manage to slip down at times and have a smoke with me? That house over yonder is Branksome.”
“Indeed, you are very kind,” he answered, with sparkling eyes. “I should dearly like to run over now and again. With the exception of Israel Stakes, our old coachman and gardener, I have not a soul that I can speak to.”
“And your sister—she must feel it even more,” said I, thinking in my heart that my new acquaintance made rather too much of his own troubles and too little of those of his companion.
“Yes; poor Gabriel feels it, no doubt,” he answered carelessly, “but it’s a more unnatural thing for a young man of my age to be cooped up in this way than for a woman. Look at me, now. I am three-and-twenty next March, and yet I have never been to a university, nor to a school for that matter. I am as complete an ignoramus as any of these clodhoppers. It seems strange to you, no doubt, and yet it is so. Now, don’t you think I deserve a better fate?”
He stopped as he spoke, and faced round to me, throwing his palms forward in appeal.
As I looked at him, with the sun shining upon his face, he certainly did seem a strange bird to be cooped up in such a cage. Tall and muscular, with a keen, dark face, and sharp, finely cut features, he might have stepped out of a canvas of Murillo or Velasquez. There were latent energy and power in his firm-set mouth, his square eyebrows, and the whole pose of his elastic, well-knit figure.
“There is the learning to be got from books and the learning to be got from experience,” said I sententiously. “If you have less of your share of the one, perhaps you have more of the other. I cannot believe you have spent all your life in mere idleness and pleasure.”
“Pleasure!” he cried. “Pleasure! Look at this!” He pulled off his hat, and I saw that his black hair was all decked and dashed with streaks of grey. “Do you imagine that this came from pleasure?” he asked, with a bitter laugh.
“You must have had some great shock,” I said, astonished at the sight, “some terrible illness in your youth. Or perhaps it arises from a more chronic cause—a constant gnawing anxiety. I have known men as young as you whose hair was as grey.”
“Poor brutes!” he muttered. “I pity them.”
“If you can manage to slip down to Branksome at times,” I said, “perhaps you could bring Miss Heatherstone with you. I know that my father and my sister would be delighted to see her, and a change, if only for an hour or two, might do her good.”
“It would be rather hard for us both to get away together,” he answered, “However, if I see a chance I shall bring her down. It might be managed some afternoon perhaps, for the old man indulges in a siesta occasionally.”
We had reached the head of the winding lane which branches off from the high road and leads to the laird’s house, so my companion pulled up.
“I must go back,” he said abruptly, “or they will miss me. It’s very kind of you, West, to take this interest in us. I am very grateful to you, and so will Gabriel be when she hears of your kind invitation. It’s a real heaping of coals of fire after that infernal placard of my father’s.”
He shook my hand and set off down the road, but he came running after me presently, calling me to stop.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “that you must consider us a great mystery up there at Cloomber. I dare say you have come to look upon it as a private lunatic asylum, and I can’t blame you. If you are interested in the matter, I feel it is unfriendly upon my part not to satisfy your curiosity, but I have promised my father to be silent about it. And indeed if I were to tell you all that I know you might not be very much the wiser after all. I would have you understand this, however—that my father is as sane as you or I, and that he has very good reasons for living the life which he does. I may add that his wish to remain secluded does not arise from any unworthy or dishonourable motives, but merely from the instinct of self-preservation.”
“He is in danger, then?” I ejaculated.
“Yes; he is in constant danger.”
“But why does he not apply to the magistrates for protection?” I asked. “If he is afraid of any one, he has only to name him and they will bind him over to keep the peace.”
“My dear West,” said young Heatherstone, “the danger with which my father is threatened is one that cannot be averted by any human intervention. It is none the less very real, and possibly very imminent.”
“You don’t mean to assert that it is supernatural,” I said incredulously.
“Well, hardly that, either,” he answered with hesitation. “There,” he continued, “I have said rather more than I should, “but I know that you will not abuse my confidence. Good-bye!”
He took to his heels and was soon out of sight round a curve in the country road.
A danger which was real and imminent, not to be averted by human means, and yet hardly supernatural—here was a conundrum indeed!
I had come to look upon the inhabitants of the Hall as mere eccentrics, but after what young Mordaunt Heatherstone had just told me, I could no longer doubt that some dark and sinister meaning underlay all their actions. The more I pondered over the problem, the more unanswerable did it appear, and yet I could not get the matter out of my thoughts.
The lonely, isolated Hall, and the strange, impending catastrophe which hung over its inmates, appealed forcibly to my imagination. All that evening, and late into the night, I sat moodily by the fire, pondering over what I had heard, and revolving in my mind the various incidents which might furnish me with some clue to the mystery.

Chapter IV: “Of a Young Man With a Grey Head”

I trust that my readers will not set me down as an inquisitive busybody when I say that as the days and weeks went by I found my attention and my thoughts more and more attracted to General Heatherstone and the mystery which surrounded him.
It was in vain that I endeavoured by hard work and a strict attention to the laird’s affairs to direct my mind into some more healthy channel. Do what I would, on land or on the water, I would still find myself puzzling over this one question, until it obtained such a hold upon me that I felt it was useless for me to attempt to apply myself to anything until I had come to some satisfactory solution of it.
I could never pass the dark line of five-foot fencing, and the great iron gate, with its massive lock, without pausing and racking my brain as to what the secret might be which was shut in by that inscrutable barrier. Yet, with all my conjectures and all my observations, I could never come to any conclusion which could for a moment be accepted as an explanation of the facts.
My sister had been out for a stroll one night, visiting a sick peasant or performing some other of the numerous acts of charity by which she had made herself beloved by the whole countryside.
“John,” she said when she returned, “have you seen Cloomber Hall at night?”
“No,” I answered, laying down the book which I was reading. “Not since that memorable evening when the general and Mr. McNeil came over to make an inspection.”
“Well, John, will you put your hat on and come a little walk with me?”
I could see by her manner that something had agitated or frightened her.
“Why, bless the girl!” cried I boisterously. “What is the matter? The old Hall is not on fire, surely? You look as grave as if all Wigtown were in a blaze.”
“Not quite so bad as that,” she said, smiling. “But do come out, Jack. I should very much like you to see it.”
I had always refrained from saying anything which might alarm my sister, so that she knew nothing of the interest which our neighbours’ doings had for me. At her request I took my hat and followed her out into the darkness. She led the way along a little footpath over the moor, which brought us to some rising ground, from which we could look down upon the Hall without our view being obstructed by any of the fir-trees which had been planted round it.
“Look at that!” said my sister, pausing at the summit of this little eminence.
Cloomber lay beneath us in a blaze of light. In the lower floors the shutters obscured the illumination, but above, from the broad windows of the second storey to the thin slits at the summit of the tower, there was not a chink or an aperture which did not send forth a stream of radiance. So dazzling was the effect that for a moment I was persuaded that the house was on fire, but the steadiness and clearness of the light soon freed me from that apprehension. It was clearly the result of many lamps placed systematically all over the building.
It added to the strange effect that all these brilliantly illuminated rooms were apparently untenanted, and some of them, so far as we could judge, were not even furnished. Through the whole great house there was no sign of movement or of life—nothing but the clear, unwinking flood of yellow light.
I was still lost in wonder at the sight when I heard a short, quick sob at my side.
“What is it, Esther, dear?” I asked, looking down at my companion.
“I feel so frightened. Oh, John, John, take me home, I feel so frightened!”
She clung to my arm, and pulled at my coat in a perfect frenzy of fear.
“It’s all safe, darling,” I said soothingly. “There is nothing to fear. What has upset you so?”
“I am afraid of them, John; I am afraid of the Heatherstones. Why is their house lit up like this every night? I have heard from others that it is always so. And why does the old man run like a frightened hare if any one comes upon him. There is something wrong about it, John, and it frightens me.”
I pacified her as well as I could, and led her home with me, where I took care that she should have some hot port negus before going to bed. I avoided the subject of the Heatherstones for fear of exciting her, and she did not recur to it of her own accord. I was convinced, however, from what I had heard from her, that she had for some time back been making her own observations upon our neighbours, and that in doing so she had put a considerable strain upon her nerves.
I could see that the mere fact of the Hall being illuminated at night was not enough to account for her extreme agitation, and that it must have derived its importance in her eyes from being one in a chain of incidents, all of which had left a weird or unpleasant impression upon her mind.
That was the conclusion which I came to at the time, and I have reason to know now that I was right, and that my sister had even more cause than I had myself for believing that there was something uncanny about the tenants of Cloomber.
Our interest in the matter may have arisen at first from nothing higher than curiosity, but events soon look a turn which associated us more closely with the fortunes of the Heatherstone family.
Mordaunt had taken advantage of my invitation to come down to the laird’s house, and on several occasions he brought with him his beautiful sister. The four of us would wander over the moors together, or perhaps if the day were fine set sail upon our little skiff and stand off into the Irish Sea.
On such excursions the brother and sister would be as merry and as happy as two children. It was a keen pleasure to them to escape from their dull fortress, and to see, if only for a few hours, friendly and sympathetic faces round them.
There could be but one result when four young people were brought together in sweet, forbidden intercourse. Acquaintance-ship warmed into friendship, and friendship flamed suddenly into love.
Gabriel sits beside me now as I write, and she agrees with me that, dear as is the subject to ourselves, the whole story of our mutual affection is of too personal a nature to be more than touched upon in this statement. Suffice it to say that, within a few weeks of our first meeting Mordaunt Heatherstone had won the heart of my clear sister, and Gabriel had given me that pledge which death itself will not be able to break.
I have alluded in this brief way to the double tie which sprang up between the two families, because I have no wish that this narrative should degenerate into anything approaching to romance, or that I should lose the thread of the facts which I have set myself to chronicle. These are connected with General Heatherstone, and only indirectly with my own personal history.
It is enough if I say that after our engagement the visits to Branksome became more frequent, and that our friends were able sometimes to spend a whole day with us when business had called the general to Wigtown, or when his gout confined him to his room.
As to our good father, he was ever ready to greet us with many small jests and tags of Oriental poems appropriate to the occasion, for we had no secrets from him, and he already looked upon us all as his children.
There were times when on account of some peculiarly dark or restless fit of the general’s it was impossible for weeks on end for either Gabriel or Mordaunt to get away from the grounds. The old man would even stand on guard, a gloomy and silent sentinel, at the avenue gate, or pace up and down the drive as though he suspected that attempts had been made to penetrate his seclusion.
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Passing of an evening I have seen his dark, grim figure flitting about in the shadow of the trees, or caught a glimpse of his hard, angular, swarthy face peering out suspiciously at me from behind the bars.
My heart would often sadden for him as I noticed his uncouth, nervous movements, his furtive glances and twitching features. Who would have believed that this slinking, cowering creature had once been a dashing officer, who had fought the battles of his country and had won the palm of bravery among the host of brave men around him?
In spite of the old soldier’s vigilance, we managed to hold communication with our friends.
Immediately behind the Hall there was a spot where the fencing had been so carelessly erected that two of the rails could be removed without difficulty, leaving a broad gap, which gave us the opportunity for many a stolen interview, though they were necessarily short, for the general’s movements were erratic, and no part of the grounds was secure from his visitations.
How vividly one of these hurried meetings rises before me! It stands out clear, peaceful, and distinct amid the wild, mysterious incidents which were destined to lead up to the terrible catastrophe which has cast a shade over our lives.
I can remember that as I walked through the fields the grass was damp with the rain of the morning, and the air was heavy with the smell of the fresh-turned earth. Gabriel was waiting for me under the hawthorn tree outside the gap, and we stood hand-in-hand looking down at the long sweep of moorland and at the broad blue channel which encircled it with its fringe of foam.
Far away in the north-west the sun glinted upon the high peak of Mount Throston. From where we stood we could see the smoke of the steamers as they ploughed along the busy water-way which leads to Belfast.
“Is it not magnificent?” Gabriel cried, clasping her hands round my arm. “Ah, John, why are we not free to sail away over these waves together, and leave all our troubles behind us on the shore?”
“And what are the troubles which you would leave behind you, dear one?” I asked. “May I not know them, and help you to bear them?”
“I have no secrets from you, John,” she answered, “Our chief trouble is, as you may guess, our poor father’s strange behaviour. Is it not a sad thing for all of us that a man who has played such a distinguished part in the world should skulk from one obscure corner of the country to another, and should defend himself with locks and barriers as though he were a common thief flying from justice? This is a trouble, John, which it is out of your power to alleviate.”
“But why does he do it, Gabriel?” I asked.
“I cannot tell,” she answered frankly. “I only know that he imagines some deadly danger to be hanging over his head, and that this danger was incurred by him during his stay in India. What its nature may be I have no more idea than you have.”
“Then your brother has,” I remarked. “I am sure from the way in which he spoke to me about it one day that he knows what it is, and that he looks upon it as real.”
“Yes, he knows, and so does my mother,” she answered, “but they have always kept it secret from me. My poor father is very excited at present. Day and night he is in an agony of apprehension, but it will soon be the fifth of October, and after that he will be at peace.”
“How do you know that?” I asked in surprise.
“By experience,” she answered gravely. “On the fifth of October these fears of his come to a crisis. For years back he has been in the habit of locking Mordaunt and myself up in our rooms on that date, so that we have no idea what occurs, but we have always found that he has been much relieved afterwards, and has continued to be comparatively in peace until that day begins to draw round again.”
“Then you have only ten days or so to wait,” I remarked, for September was drawing to a close. “By the way, dearest, why is it that you light up all your rooms at night?”
“You have noticed it, then?” she said. “It comes also from my father’s fears. He does not like to have one dark corner in the whole house. He walks about a good deal at night, and inspects everything, from the attics right down to the cellars. He has large lamps in every room and corridor, even the empty ones, and he orders the servants to light them all at dusk.”
“I am rather surprised that you manage to keep your servants,” I said, laughing. “The maids in these parts are a superstitious class, and their imaginations are easily excited by anything which they don’t understand.”
“The cook and both housemaids are from London, and are used to our ways. We pay them on a very high scale to make up for any inconvenience to which they may be put. Israel Stakes, the coachman, is the only one who comes from this part of the country, and he seems to be a stolid, honest fellow, who is not easily scared.”
“Poor little girl,” I exclaimed, looking down at the slim, graceful figure by my side. “This is no atmosphere for you to live in. Why will you not let me rescue you from it? Why won’t you allow me to go straight and ask the general for your hand? At the worst he could only refuse.”
She turned quite haggard and pale at the very thought.
“For Heaven’s sake, John,” she cried earnestly, “do nothing of the kind. He would whip us all away in the dead of the night, and within a week we should be settling down again in some wilderness where we might never have a chance of seeing or hearing from you again. Besides, he never would forgive us for venturing out of the grounds.”
“I don’t think that he is a hard-hearted man,” I remarked. “I have seen a kindly look in his eyes, for all his stern face.”
“He can be the kindest of fathers,” she answered. “But he is terrible when opposed or thwarted. You have never seen him so, and I trust you never will. It was that strength of will and impatience of opposition which made him such a splendid officer. I assure you that in India every one thought a great deal of him. The soldiers were afraid of him, but they would have followed him anywhere.”
“And had he these nervous attacks then?”
“Occasionally, but not nearly so acutely. He seems to think that the danger—whatever it may be—becomes more imminent every year. Oh, John, it is terrible to be waiting like this with a sword over our heads—and all the more terrible to me since I have no idea where the blow is to come from.”
“Dear Gabriel,” I said, taking her hand and drawing her to my side, “look over all this pleasant countryside and the broad blue sea. Is it not all peaceful and beautiful? In these cottages, with their red-tiled roofs peeping out from the grey moor, there live none but simple, God-fearing men, who toil hard at their crafts and bear enmity to no man. Within seven miles of us is a large town, with every civilized appliance for the preservation of order. Ten miles farther there is a garrison quartered, and a telegram would at any time bring down a company of soldiers. Now, I ask you, dear, in the name of common-sense, what conceivable danger could threaten you in this secluded neighbourhood, with the means of help so near? You assure me that the peril is not connected with your father’s health?”
“No, I am sure of that. It is true that Dr. Easterling, of Stranraer. has been over to see him once or twice, but that was merely for some small indisposition. I can assure you that the danger is not to be looked for in that direction.”
“Then I can assure you,” said I, laughing, “that there is no danger at all. It must be some strange monomania or hallucination. No other hypothesis will cover the facts.”
“Would my father’s monomania account for the fact of my brother’s hair turning grey and my mother wasting away to a mere shadow?”
“Undoubtedly,” I answered, “The long continued worry of the general’s restlessness and irritability would produce those effects on sensitive natures.”
“No, no!” said she, shaking her head sadly, “I have been exposed to his restlessness and irritability, but they have had no such effect upon me. The difference between us lies in the fact that they know this awful secret and I do not.”
“My dear girl,” said I, “the days of family apparitions and that kind of thing are gone. Nobody is haunted nowadays, so we can put that supposition out of the question. Having done so, what remains? There is absolutely no other theory which could even be suggested. Believe me, the whole mystery is that the heat of India has been too much for your poor father’s brain.”
What she would have answered I cannot tell, for at that moment she gave a start as if some sound had fallen upon her ear. As she looked round apprehensively, I suddenly saw her features become rigid and her eyes fixed and dilated.
Following the direction of her gaze, I felt a sudden thrill of fear pass through me as I perceived a human face surveying us from behind one of the trees—a man’s face, every feature of which was distorted by the most malignant hatred and anger. Finding himself observed, he stepped out and advanced towards us, when I saw that it was none other than the general himself. His beard was all a-bristle with fury, and his deepset eyes glowed from under their heavily veined lids with a most sinister and demoniacal brightness.

Chapter V: “How Four of Us Came To Be Under the Shadow of Cloomber”

“To your room, girl!” he cried in a hoarse, harsh voice, stepping in between us and pointing authoritatively towards the house.
He waited until Gabriel, with a last frightened glance at me, had passed through the gap, and then he turned upon me with an expression so murderous that I stepped back a pace or two, and tightened my grasp upon my oak stick.
“You-you—” he spluttered, with his hand twitching at his throat, as though his fury were choking him. “You have dared to intrude upon my privacy! Do you think I built this fence that all the vermin in the country might congregate round it? Oh, you have been very near your death, my fine fellow! You will never be nearer until your time comes. Look at this!” he pulled a squat, thick pistol out of his bosom. “If you had passed through that gap and set foot on my land I’d have let daylight into you. I’ll have no vagabonds here. I know how to treat gentry of that sort, whether their faces are black or white.”
“Sir,” said I, “I meant no harm by coming here, and I do not know how I have deserved this extraordinary outburst. Allow me to observe, however, that you are still covering me with your pistol, and that, as your hand is rather tremulous, it is more than possible that it may go off. If you don’t turn the muzzle down I shall be compelled in self-defense to strike you over the wrist with my stick.”
“What the deuce brought you here, then?” he asked, in a more composed voice, putting his weapon back into his bosom. “Can’t a gentleman live quietly without your coming to peep and pry? Have you no business of your own to look after, eh? And my daughter? How came you to know anything of her? And what have you been trying to squeeze out of her? It wasn’t chance that brought you here.”
“No,” said I boldly, “it was not chance which brought me here. I have had several opportunities of seeing your daughter and of appreciating her many noble qualities. We are engaged to be married to each other, and I came up with the express intention of seeing her.”
Instead of blazing into a fury, as I had expected, the general gave a long whistle of astonishment, and then leant up against the railings, laughing softly to himself.
“English terriers are fond of nosing worms,” he remarked at last. “When we brought them out to India they used to trot off into the jungle and begin sniffing at what, they imagined to be worms there. But the worm turned out to be a venomous snake, and so poor doggy played no more. I think you’ll find yourself in a somewhat analogous position if you don’t look out.”
“You surely don’t mean to cast an aspersion upon your own daughter?” I said, flushing with indignation.
“Oh, Gabriel is all right,” he answered carelessly. “Our family is not exactly one, however, which I should recommend a young fellow to marry into. And pray how is it that I was not informed of this snug little arrangement of yours?”
“We were afraid, sir, that you might separate us,” I replied, feeling that perfect candour was the best policy under the circumstances. “It is possible that we were mistaken. Before coming to any final decision, I implore you to remember that the happiness of both of us is at stake. It is in your power to divide our bodies, but our souls shall be for ever united.”
“My good fellow,” said the general, in a not unkindly tone, “you don’t know what you are asking for. There is a gulf between you and any one of the blood of Heatherstone which can never be bridged over.”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
All trace of anger had vanished now from his manner, and given place to an air of somewhat contemptuous amusement.
My family pride took fire at his words. “The gulf may be less than you imagine,” I said coldly. “We are not clodhoppers because we live in this out-of-the-way place. I am of noble descent on one side, and my mother was a Buchan of Buchan, I assure you that there is no such disparity between us as you seem to imagine.”
“You misunderstand me,” the general answered. “It is on our side that the disparity lies. There are reasons why my daughter Gabriel should live and die single. It would not be to your advantage to marry her.”
“But surely, sir,” I persisted, “I am the best judge of my own interests and advantages. Since you take this ground all becomes easy, for I do assure you that the one interest which overrides all others is that I should have the woman I love for my wife. If this is your only objection to our match you may surely give us your consent, for any danger or trial which I may incur in marrying Gabriel will not weigh with me one featherweight.”
“Here’s a young bantam!” exclaimed the old soldier, smiling at my warmth. “It’s easy to defy danger when you don’t know what the danger is.”
“What is it, then?” I asked, hotly. “There is no earthly peril which will drive me from Gabriel’s side. Let me know what it is and test me.”
“No, no. That would never do,” he answered with a sigh, and then, thoughtfully, as if speaking his mind aloud: “He has plenty of pluck and is a well-grown lad, too. We might do worse than make use of him.”
He went on mumbling to himself with a vacant stare in his eyes as if he had forgotten my presence.
“Look here, West,” he said presently. “You’ll excuse me if I spoke hastily a little time ago. It is the second time that I have had occasion to apologize to you for the same offence. It shan’t occur again. I am rather over-particular, no doubt, in my desire for complete isolation, but I have good reasons for insisting on the point. Rightly or wrongly, I have got it into my head that some day there might be an organized raid upon my grounds. If anything of the sort should occur I suppose I might reckon upon your assistance?”
“With all my heart.”
“So that if ever you got a message such as ‘Come up,’ or even ‘Cloomber,’ you would know that it was an appeal for help, and would hurry up immediately, even if it were in the dead of the night?”
“Most certainly I should,” I answered. “But might I ask you what the nature of the danger is which you apprehend?”
“There would be nothing gained by your knowing. Indeed, you would hardly understand it if I told you. I must bid you good day now, for I have stayed with you too long. Remember, I count upon you as one of the Cloomber garrison now.”
“One other thing, sir,” I said hurriedly, for he was turning away,” I hope that you will not be angry with your daughter for anything which I have told you. It was for my sake that she kept it all secret from you.”
“All right,” he said, with his cold, inscrutable smile. “I am not such an ogre in the bosom of my family as you seem to think. As to this marriage question, I should advise you as a friend to let it drop altogether, but if that is impossible I must insist that it stand over completely for the present. It is impossible to say what unexpected turn events may take. Good-bye.”
He plunged into the wood and was quickly out of sight among the dense plantation.
Thus ended this extraordinary interview, in which this strange man had begun by pointing a loaded pistol at my breast and had ended, by partially acknowledging the possibility of my becoming his future son- in-law. I hardly knew whether to be cast down or elated over it.
On the one hand he was likely, by keeping a closer watch over his daughter, to prevent us from communicating as freely as we had done hitherto. Against this there was the advantage of having obtained an implied consent to the renewal of my suit at some future date. On the whole, I came to the conclusion as I walked thoughtfully home that I had improved my position by the incident.
But this danger—this shadowy, unspeakable danger—which appeared to rise up at every turn, and to hang day and night over the towers of Cloomber! Rack my brain as I would, I could not conjure up any solution to the problem which was not puerile and inadequate.
One fact struck me as being significant. Both the father and the son had assured me, independently of each other, that if I were told what the peril was, I would hardly realize its significance. How strange and bizarre must the fear be which can scarcely be expressed in intelligible language!
I held up my hand in the darkness before I turned to sleep that night, and I swore that no power of man or devil should ever weaken my love for the woman whose pure heart I had had the good fortune to win.

Chapter VI: “How I Came To Be Enlisted as One of the Garrison of Cloomber”

In making this statement I have purposely couched it in bald and simple language, for fear I should be accused of colouring my narrative for the sake of effect. If, however, I have told my story with any approach to realism, the reader will understand me when I say that by this time the succession of dramatic incidents which had occurred had arrested my attention and excited my imagination to the exclusion of all minor topics.
How could I plod through the dull routine of an agent’s work, or interest myself in the thatch of this tenant’s bothy or the sails of that one’s boat, when my mind was taken up by the chain of events which I have described, and was still busy seeking an explanation for them.
Go where I would over the countryside, I could see the square, white tower shooting out from among the trees, and beneath that tower this ill-fated family were watching and waiting, waiting and watching—and for what? That was still the question which stood like an impassable barrier at the end of every train of thought.
Regarded merely as an abstract problem, this mystery of the Heatherstone family had a lurid fascination about it, but when the woman whom I loved a thousandfold better than I did myself proved to be so deeply interested in the solution, I felt that it was impossible to turn my thoughts to anything else until it had been finally cleared up.
My good father had received a letter from the laird, dated from Naples, which told us that he had derived much benefit from the change, and that he had no intention of returning to Scotland for some time. This was satisfactory to all of us, for my father had found Branksome such an excellent place for study that it would have been a sore trial to him to return to the noise and tumult of a city. As to my dear sister and myself, there were, as I have shown, stronger reasons still to make us love the Wigtownshire moors.
In spite of my interview with the general—or perhaps I might say on account of it—I took occasion at least twice a day to walk towards Cloomber and satisfy myself that all was well there. He had begun by resenting my intrusion, but he had ended by taking me into a sort of half-confidence, and even by asking my assistance, so I felt that I stood upon a different footing with him than I had done formerly, and that he was less likely to be annoyed by my presence. Indeed, I met him pacing round the enclosure a few days afterwards, and his manner towards me was civil, though he made no allusion to our former conversation.
He appeared to be still in an extreme state of nervousness, starting from time to time, and gazing furtively about him, with little frightened, darting glances to the right and the left. I hoped that his daughter was right in naming the fifth of October as the turning point of his complaint, for it was evident to me as I looked at his gleaming eyes and quivering hands, that a man could not live long in such a state of nervous tension.
I found on examination that he had had the loose rails securely fastened so as to block up our former trysting-place, and though I prowled round the whole long line of fencing, I was unable to find any other place where an entrance could be effected.
Here and there between the few chinks left in the barrier I could catch glimpses of the Hall, and once I saw a rough-looking, middle-aged man standing at a window on the lower floor, whom I supposed to be Israel Stakes, the coachman. There was no sign, however, of Gabriel or of Mordaunt, and their absence alarmed me. I was convinced that, unless they were under some restraint, they would have managed to communicate with my sister or myself. My fears became more and more acute as day followed day without our seeing or hearing anything of them.
One morning—it was the second day of October—I was walking towards the Hall, hoping that I might be fortunate enough to learn some news of my darling, when I observed a man perched upon a stone at the side of the road.
As I came nearer to him I could see that he was a stranger, and from his dusty clothes and dilapidated appearance he seemed to have come from a distance. He had a great hunch of bread on his knee and a clasp-knife in his hand, but he had apparently just finished his breakfast, for he brushed the crumbs off his lap and rose to his feet when he perceived me.
Noticing the great height of the fellow and that he still held his weapon, I kept well to the other side of the road, for I knew that destitution makes men desperate and that the chain that glittered on my waistcoat might be too great a temptation to him upon this lonely highway. I was confirmed in my fears when I saw him step out into the centre of the road and bar my progress.
“Well, my lad,” I said, affecting an ease which I by no means felt, “what can I do for you this morning?”
The fellow’s face was the colour of mahogany with exposure to the weather, and he had a deep scar from the corner of his mouth to his ear, which by no means improved his appearance. His hair was grizzled, but his figure was stalwart, and his fur cap was cocked on one side so as to give him a rakish, semi-military appearance. Altogether he gave me the impression of being one of the most dangerous types of tramp that I had ever fallen in with.
Instead of replying to my question, he eyed me for some time in silence with sullen, yellow-shot eyes, and then closed his knife with a loud snick.
“You’re not a beak,” he said, “too young for that, I guess. They had me in chokey at Paisley and they had me in chokey at Wigtown, but by the living thunder if another of them lays a hand on me I’ll make him remember Corporal Rufus Smith! It’s a darned fine country this, where they won’t give a man work, and then lay him by the heels for having no visible means of subsistence.”
“I am sorry to see an old soldier so reduced,” said I. “What corps did you serve in?”
“H Battery, Royal Horse Artillery. Bad cess to the Service and every one in it! Here I am nigh sixty years of age, with a beggarly pension of thirty-eight pound ten—not enough to keep me in beer and baccy.”
“I should have thought thirty-eight pound ten a year would have been a nice help to you in your old age,” I remarked.
“Would you, though?” he answered with a sneer, pushing his weather-beaten face forward until it was within a foot of my own.
“How much d’ye think that slash with a tulwar is worth? And my foot with all the bones rattling about like a bagful of dice where the trail of the gun went across it. What’s that worth, eh? And a liver like a sponge, and ague whenever the wind comes round to the east—what’s the market value of that? Would you take the lot for a dirty forty pound a year—would you now?”
“We are poor folk in this part of the country,” I answered. “You would pass for a rich man down here.”
“They are fool folk and they have fool tastes,” said he, drawing a black pipe from his pocket and stuffing it with tobacco. “I know what good living is, and, by cripes! While I have a shilling in my pocket I like to spend it as a shilling should be spent. I’ve fought for my country and my country has done darned little for me. I’ll go to the Rooshians, so help me! I could show them how to cross the Himalayas so that it would puzzle either Afghans or British to stop ‘em. What’s that secret worth in St. Petersburg, eh, mister?”
“I am ashamed to hear an old soldier speak so, even in jest,” said I sternly.
“Jest, indeed!” He cried, with a great, roaring oath. “I’d have done it years ago if the Rooshians had been game to take it up. Skobeloff was the best of the bunch, but he’s been snuffed out. However, that’s neither here nor there. What I want to ask you is whether you’ve ever heard anything in this quarter of a man called Heatherstone, the same who used to be colonel of the 41st Bengalis? They told me at Wigtown that he lived somewhere down this way.”
“He lives in that large house over yonder,” said I, pointing to Cloomber Tower. “You’ll find the avenue gate a little way down the road, but the general isn’t over fond of visitors.”
The last part of my speech was lost upon Corporal Rufus Smith; for the instant that I pointed out the gate he set off hopping down the road.
His mode of progression was the most singular I have ever seen, for He would only put his right foot to the ground once in every half-dozen strides, while he worked so hard and attained such a momentum with the other limb that he got over the ground at an astonishing speed.
I was so surprised that I stood in the roadway gazing after this hulking figure until the thought suddenly struck me that some serious result might come from a meeting between a man of such blunt speech and the choleric, hot-headed general. I therefore followed him as he hopped along like some great, clumsy bird, and overtook him at the avenue gate, where he stood grasping the ironwork and peering through at the dark carriage-drive beyond.
“He’s a sly old jackal,” he said, looking round at me and nodding his head in the direction of the Hall. “He’s a deep old dog. And that’s his bungalow, is it, among the trees?”
“That is his house,” I answered; “but I should advise you to keep a more civil tongue in your head if you intend to speak with the general. He is not a man to stand any nonsense.”
“Right you are. He was always a hard nut to crack. But isn’t this him coming down the avenue?”
I looked through the gate and saw that it was indeed the general, who, having either seen us or been attracted by our voices, was hurrying down towards us. As he advanced he would stop from time to time and peer at us through the dark shadow thrown by the trees, as if he were irresolute whether to come on or no.
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“He’s reconnoitering!” whispered my companion with a hoarse chuckle. “He’s afraid—and I know what he’s afraid of. He won’t be caught in a trap if he can help it, the old ‘un. He’s about as fly as they make ‘em, you bet!”
Then suddenly standing on his tip-toes and waving his hand through the bars of the gate, he shouted at the top of his voice:
“Come on, my gallant commandant! Come on! The coast’s clear, and no enemy in sight.”
This familiar address had the effect of reassuring the general, for he came right for us, though I could tell by his heightened colour that his temper was at boiling point.
“What, you here, Mr. West?” he said, as his eye fell upon me. “What is it you want, and why have you brought this fellow with you?”
“I have not brought him with me, sir,” I answered, feeling rather disgusted at being made responsible for the presence of the disreputable-looking vagabond beside me. “I found him on the road here, and he desired to be directed to you, so I showed him the way. I know nothing of him myself.”
“What do you want with me, then?” the general asked sternly, turning to my companion.
“If you please, sir,” said the ex-corporal, speaking in a whining voice, and touching his moleskin cap with a humility which contrasted strangely with the previous rough independence of his bearing, “I’m an old gunner in the Queen’s service, sir, and knowing your name by hearing it in India I thought that maybe you would take me as your groom or gardener, or give me any other place as happened to be vacant.”
“I am sorry that I cannot do anything for you, my man,” the old soldier answered impressively.
“Then you’ll give me a little just to help me on my way, sir,” said he cringing mendicant. “You won’t see an old comrade go to the bad for the sake of a few rupees? I was with Sale’s brigade in the Passes, sir, and I was at the second taking of Cabul.”
General Heatherstone looked keenly at the supplicant, but was silent to his appeal.
“I was in Ghuznee with you when the walls were all shook down by an earthquake, and when we found forty thousand Afghans within gunshot of us. You ask me about it, and you’ll see whether I’m lying or not. We went through all this when we were young, and now that we are old you are to live in a fine bungalow, and I am to starve by the roadside. It don’t seem to me to be fair.”
“You are an impertinent scoundrel,” said the general. “If you had been a good soldier you would never need to ask for help. I shall not give you a farthing.”
“One word more, sir,” cried the tramp, for the other was turning away, “I’ve been in the Tarada Pass.”
The old soldier sprang round as if the words had been a pistol-shot.
“What—what d’ye mean?” he stammered. “I’ve been in the Tarada Pass, sir, and I knew a man there called Ghoolab Shah.”
These last were hissed out in an undertone, and a malicious grin overspread the face of the speaker.
Their effect upon the general was extraordinary. He fairly staggered back from the gateway, and his yellow countenance blanched to a livid, mottled grey. For a moment he was too overcome to speak. At last he gasped out:
“Ghoolab Shah’ Who are you who know Ghoolab Shah?”
“Take another look,” said the tramp, “your sight is not as keen as it was forty years ago.”
The general took a long, earnest look at the unkempt wanderer in front of him, and as he gazed I saw the light of recognition spring up in his eyes.
“God bless my soul!” he cried. “Why, it’s Corporal Rufus Smith.”
“You’ve come on it at last,” said the other, chuckling to himself. “I was wondering how long it would be before you knew me. And, first of all, just unlock this gate, will you? It’s hard to talk through a grating. It’s too much like ten minutes with a visitor in the cells.”
The general, whose face still bore evidences of his agitation, undid the bolts with nervous, trembling fingers. The recognition of Corporal Rufus Smith had, I fancied, been a relief to him, and yet he plainly showed by his manner that he regarded his presence as by no means an unmixed blessing.
“Why, Corporal,” he said, as the gate swung open, “I have often wondered whether you were dead or alive, but I never expected to see you again. How have you been all these long years?”
“How have I been?” the corporal answered gruffly. “Why, I have been drunk for the most part. When I draw my money I lay it out in liquor, and as long as that lasts I get some peace in life. When I’m cleaned out I go upon tramp, partly in the hope of picking up the price of a dram, and partly in order to look for you.”
“You’ll excuse us talking about these private matters, West,” the general said, looking round at me, for I was beginning to move away. “Don’t leave us. You know something of this matter already, and may find yourself entirely in the swim with us some of these days.”
Corporal Rufus Smith looked round at me in blank astonishment.
“In the swim with us?” he said. “However did he get there?”
“Voluntarily, voluntarily,” the general explained, hurriedly sinking his voice. “He is a neighbour of mine, and he has volunteered his help in case I should ever need it.”
This explanation seemed, if anything, to increase the big stranger’s surprise.
“Well, if that don’t lick cock-fighting!” he exclaimed, contemplating me with admiration. “I never heard tell of such a thing.”
“And now you have found me, Corporal Smith,” said the tenant of Cloomber, “what is it that you want of me?”
“Why, everything. I want a roof to cover me, and clothes to wear, and food to eat, and, above all, brandy to drink.”
“Well, I’ll take you in and do what I can for you,” said the general slowly. “But look here, Smith, we must have discipline. I’m the general and you are the corporal; I am the master and you are the man. Now, don’t let me have to remind you of that again.”
The tramp drew himself up to his full height and raised his right hand with the palm forward in a military salute.
“I can take you on as gardener and get rid of the fellow I have got. As to brandy, you shall have an allowance and no more. We are not deep drinkers at the Hall.”
“Don’t you take opium, or brandy, or nothing yourself, sir?” asked Corporal Rufus Smith.
“Nothing,” the general said firmly.
“Well, all I can say is, that you’ve got more nerve and pluck than I shall ever have. I don’t wonder now at your winning that Cross in the Mutiny. If I was to go on listening night after night to them things without ever taking a drop of something to cheer my heart—why, it would drive me silly.”
General Heatherstone put his hand up, as though afraid that his companion might say too much.
“I must thank you, Mr. West,” he said, “for having shown this man my door. I would not willingly allow an old comrade, however humble, to go to the bad, and if I did not acknowledge his claim more readily it was simply because I had my doubts as to whether he was really what he represented himself to be. Just walk up to the Hall, Corporal, and I shall follow you in a minute.”
“Poor fellow!” he continued, as he watched the newcomer hobbling up the avenue in the ungainly manner which I have described. “He got a gun over his foot, and it crushed the bones, but the obstinate fool would not let the doctors take it off. I remember him now as a smart young soldier in Afghanistan. He and I were associated in some queer adventures, which I may tell you of some day, and I naturally feel sympathy towards him, and would befriend him. Did he tell you anything about me before I came?”
“Not a word,” I replied.
“Oh,” said the general carelessly, but with an evident expression of relief, “I thought perhaps he might have said something of old times. Well, I must go and look after him, or the servants will be frightened, for he isn’t a beauty to look at. Good-bye!”
With a wave of the hand the old man turned away from me and hurried up the drive after this unexpected addition to his household, while I strolled on round the high, black paling, peering through every chink between the planks, but without seeing a trace either of Mordaunt or of his sister.
I have now brought this statement down to the coming of Corporal Rufus Smith, which will prove to be the beginning of the end.
I have set down soberly and in order the events which brought us to Wigtownshire, the arrival of the Heatherstones at Cloomber, the many strange incidents which excited first our curiosity and finally our intense interest in that family, and I have briefly touched upon the circumstances which brought my sister and myself into a closer and more personal relationship with them. I think that there cannot be a better moment than this to hand the narrative over to those who had means of knowing something of what was going on inside Cloomber during the months that I was observing it from without.
Israel Stakes, the coachman, proved to be unable to read or write, but Mr. Mathew Clark, the Presbyterian Minister of Stoneykirk, has copied down his deposition, duly attested by the cross set opposite to his name. The good clergyman has, I fancy, put some slight polish upon the narrator’s story, which I rather regret, as it might have been more interesting, if less intelligible, when reported verbatim. It still preserves, however, considerable traces of Israel’s individuality, and may be regarded as an exact record of what he saw and did while in General Heatherstone’s service.

Chapter VII: “Of Corporal Rufus Smith and His Coming to Cloomber”

Chapter VIII: “Statement of Israel Stakes”

Having given the statement of Israel Stakes in extenso , I shall append a short memorandum from Dr. Easterling, now practicing at Stranraer. It is true that the doctor was only once within the walls of Cloomber during its tenancy by General Heatherstone, but there were some circumstances connected with this visit which made it valuable, especially when considered as a supplement to the experiences which I have just submitted to the reader.
The doctor has found time amid the calls of a busy country practice to jot down his recollections, and I feel that I cannot do better than subjoin them exactly as they stand.
I have very much pleasure in furnishing Mr. Fothergill West with an account of my solitary visit to Cloomber Hall, not only on account of the esteem which I have formed for that gentleman ever since his residence at Branksome, but also because it is my conviction that the facts in the case of General Heatherstone are of such a singular nature that it is of the highest importance that they should be placed before the public in a trustworthy manner.
It was about the beginning of September of last year that I received a note from Mrs. Heatherstone, of Cloomber Hall, desiring me to make a professional call upon her husband, whose health, she said, had been for some time in a very unsatisfactory state.
I had heard something of the Heatherstones and of the strange seclusion in which they lived, so that I was very much pleased at this opportunity of making their closer acquaintance, and lost no time in complying with her request.
I had known the Hall in the old days of Mr. McVittie, the original proprietor, and I was astonished on arriving at the avenue gate to observe the changes which had taken place.
The gate itself, which used to yawn so hospitably upon the road, was now barred and locked, and a high wooden fence, with nails upon the top, encircled the whole grounds. The drive itself was leaf-strewn and uncared-for, and the whole place had a depressing air of neglect and decay.
I had to knock twice before a servant-maid opened the door and showed me through a dingy hall into a small room, where sat an elderly, careworn lady, who introduced herself as Mrs. Heatherstone. With her pale face, her grey hair, her sad, colourless eyes, and her faded silk dress, she was in perfect keeping with her melancholy surroundings.
“You find us in much trouble, doctor,” she said, in a quiet, refined voice. “My poor husband has had a great deal to worry him, and his nervous system for a long time has been in a very weak state. We came to this part of the country in the hope that the bracing air and the quiet would have a good effect upon him. Instead of improving, however, he has seemed to grow weaker, and this morning he is in a high fever and a little inclined to be delirious. The children and I were so frightened that we sent for you at once. If you will follow me I will take you to the general’s bedroom.”
She led the way down a series of corridors to the chamber of the sick man, which was situated in the extreme wing of the building.
It was a carpetless, bleak-looking room, scantily furnished with a small truckle bed, a campaigning chair, and a plain deal table, on which were scattered numerous papers and books. In the centre of this table there stood a large object of irregular outline, which was covered over with a sheet of linen.
All round the walls and in the corners were arranged a very choice and varied collection of arms, principally swords, some of which were of the straight pattern in common use in the British Army, while among the others were scimitars, tulwars, cuchurries, and a score of other specimens of Oriental workmanship. Many of these were richly mounted, with inlaid sheaths and hilts sparkling with precious stones, so that there was a piquant contrast between the simplicity of the apartment and the wealth which glittered on the walls.
I had little time, however, to observe the general’s collection, since the general himself lay upon the couch and was evidently in sore need of my services.
He was lying with his head turned half away from us. Breathing heavily, and apparently unconscious of our presence. His bright, staring eyes and the deep, hectic flush upon his cheek showed that his fever was at its height.
I advanced to the bedside, and, stooping over him, I placed my fingers upon his pulse, when immediately he sprang up into the sitting position and struck at me frenziedly with his clenched hands. I have never seen such intensity of fear and horror stamped upon a human face as appeared upon that that which was now glaring up at me.
“Bloodhound!” he yelled; “let me go—let me go, I say! Keep your hands off me! Is it not enough that my life has been ruined? When is it all to end? How long am I to endure it?”
“Hush, dear, hush!” said his wife in a soothing voice, passing her cool hand over his heated forehead. “This is Doctor Easterling, from Stranraer. He has not come to harm you, but to do you good.”
The general dropped wearily back upon his pillow, and I could see by the changed expression of his face that his delirium had left him, and that he understood what had been said.
I slipped my clinical thermometer into his armpit and counted his pulse rate. It amounted to 120 per minute, and his temperature proved to be 104 degrees. Clearly it was a case of remittent fever, such as occurs in men who have spent a great part of their lives in the tropics.
“There is no danger,” I remarked. “With a little quinine and arsenic we shall very soon overcome the attack and restore his health.”
“No danger, eh?” he said. “There never is any danger for me. I am as hard to kill as the Wandering Jew. I am quite clear in the head now, Mary; so you may leave me with the doctor.”
Mrs. Heatherstone left the room-rather unwillingly, as I thought—and I sat down by the bedside to listen to anything which my patient might have to communicate.
“I want you to examine my liver,” he said when the door was closed. “I used to have an abscess there, and Brodie, the staff-surgeon, said that it was ten to one that it would carry me off. I have not felt much of it since I left the East. This is where it used to be, just under the angle of the ribs.”
“I can find the place,” said I, after making a careful examination; “but I am happy to tell you that the abscess has either been entirely absorbed, or has turned calcareous, as these solitary abscesses will. There is no fear of its doing you any harm now.”
He seemed to be by no means overjoyed at the intelligence.
“Things always happen so with me,” he said moodily. “Now, if another fellow was feverish and delirious he would surely be in some danger, and yet you will tell me that I am in none. Look at this, now.” He bared his chest and showed me a puckered wound over the region of the heart. “That’s where the jezail bullet of a Hillman went in. You would think that was in the right spot to settle a man, and yet what does it do but glance upon a rib, and go clean round and out at the back, without so much as penetrating what you medicos call the pleura. Did ever you hear of such a thing?”
“You were certainly born under a lucky star,” I observed, with a smile.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he answered, shaking his head. “Death has no terrors for me, if it will but come in some familiar form, but I confess that the anticipation of some strange, some preternatural form of death is very terrible and unnerving”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“You mean,” said I, rather puzzled at his remark, “that you would prefer a natural death to a death by violence?”
“No, I don’t mean that exactly,” he answered. “I am too familiar with cold steel and lead to be afraid of either. Do you know anything about odyllic force, doctor?”
“No, I do not,” I replied, glancing sharply at him to see if there were any signs of his delirium returning. His expression was intelligent, however, and the feverish flush had faded from his cheeks.
“Ah, you Western scientific men are very much behind the day in some things,” he remarked. “In all that is material and conducive to the comfort of the body you are pre-eminent, but in what concerns the subtle forces of Nature and the latent powers of the human spirit your best men are centuries behind the humblest coolies of India. Countless generations of beef-eating, comfort loving ancestors have given our animal instincts the command over our spiritual ones. The body, which should have been a mere tool for the use of the soul, has now become a degrading prison in which it is confined. The Oriental soul and body are not so welded together as ours are, and there is far less wrench when they part in death”
“They do not appear to derive much benefit from this peculiarity in their organization,” I remarked incredulously.
“Merely the benefit of superior knowledge,” the general answered. “If you were to go to India, probably the very first thing you would see in the way of amusement would be a native doing what is called the mango trick. Of course you have heard or read of it. The fellow plants a mango seed, and makes passes over it until it sprouts and bears leaves and fruit—all in the space of half-an-hour. It is not really a trick— it is a power. These men know more than your Tyndalls or Huxleys do about Nature’s processes, and they can accelerate or retard her workings by subtle means of which we have no conception. These low-caste conjurers—as they are called—are mere vulgar dabblers, but the men who have trod the higher path are as far superior to us in knowledge as we are to the Hottentots or Patagonians.”
“You speak as if you were well acquainted with them,” I remarked.
“To my cost, I am,” he answered. “I have been brought in contact with them in a way in which I trust no other poor chap ever will be. But, really, as regards odyllic force, you ought to know something of it, for it has a great future before it in your profession. You should read Reichcnbach’s ‘Researches on Magnetism and Vital Force,’ and Gregory’s ‘Letters on Animal Magnetism.’ These, supplemented by the twenty-seven Aphorisms of Mesmer, and the works of Dr. Justinus Kerner, of Weinsberg, would enlarge your ideas.”
I did not particularly relish having a course of reading prescribed for me on a subject connected with my own profession, so I made no comment, but rose to take my departure. Before doing so I felt his pulse once more, and found that the fever had entirely left him in the sudden, unaccountable fashion which is peculiar to these malarious types of disease.
I turned my face towards him to congratulate him upon his improvement, and stretched out my hand at the same time to pick my gloves from the table, with the result that I raised not only my own property, but also the linen cloth which was arranged over some object in the centre.
I might not have noticed what I had done had I not seen an angry look upon the invalid’s face and heard him utter an impatient exclamation. I at once turned, and replaced the cloth so promptly that I should have been unable to say what was underneath it, beyond having a general impression that it looked like a bride-cake.
“All right, doctor,” the general said good-humouredly, perceiving how entirely accidental the incident was. “There is no reason why you should not see it,” and stretching out his hand, he pulled away the linen covering for the second time.
I then perceived that what I had taken for a bride-cake was really an admirably executed model of a lofty range of mountains, whose snow-clad peaks were not unlike the familiar sugar pinnacles and minarets.
“These are the Himalayas, or at least the Surinam branch of them,” he remarked, “showing the principal passes between India and Afghanistan. It is an excellent model. This ground has a special interest for me, because it is the scene of my first campaign. There is the pass opposite Kalabagh and the Thul valley, where I was engaged during the summer of 1841 in protecting the convoys and keeping the Afridis in order. It wasn’t a sinecure, I promise you.”
“And this,” said I, indicating a blood-red spot which had been marked on one side of the pass which he had pointed out—”this is the scene of some fight in which you were engaged.”
“Yes, we had a skirmish there,” he answered, leaning forward and looking at the red mark. “We were attacked by—”
At this moment he fell back upon his pillow as if he had been shot, while the same look of horror came over his face which I had observed when I first entered the room. At the same instant there came, apparently from the air immediately above his bed, a sharp, ringing, tinkling sound, which I can only compare with the noise made by a bicycle alarm, though it differed from this in having a distinctly throbbing character. I have never, before or since, heard any sound which could be confounded with it.
I stared round in astonishment, wondering where it could have come from, but without perceiving anything to which it could be ascribed.
“It’s all right, doctor,” the general said with a ghastly smile. “It’s only my private gong. Perhaps you had better step downstairs and write my prescription in the dining-room.”
He was evidently anxious to get rid of me, so I was forced to take my departure, though I would gladly have stayed a little longer, in the hope of learning something as to the origin of the mysterious sound.
I drove away from the house with the full determination of calling again upon my interesting patient, and endeavouring to elicit some further particulars as to his past life and his present circumstances. I was destined, however, to be disappointed, for I received that very evening a note from the general himself, enclosing a handsome fee for my single visit, and informing me that my treatment had done him so much good that he considered himself to be convalescent, and would not trouble me to see him again.
This was the last and only communication which I ever received from the tenant of Cloomber.
I have been asked frequently by neighbours and others who were interested in the matter whether he gave me the impression of insanity. To this I must unhesitatingly answer in the negative. On the contrary, his remarks gave me the idea of a man who had both read and thought deeply.
I observed, however, during our single interview, that his reflexes were feeble, his arcus senilis well marked, and his arteries atheromatous— all signs that his constitution was in an unsatisfactory condition, and that a sudden crisis might be apprehended.

Chapter IX: “Narrative of John Easterling, F.R.C.P.Edin.”

Having thrown this side-light upon my narrative, I can now resume the statement of my own personal experiences. These I had brought down, as the reader will doubtless remember, to the date of the arrival of the savage-looking wanderer who called himself Corporal Rufus Smith. This incident occurred about the beginning of the month of October, and I find upon a comparison of dates that Dr. Easterling’s visit to Cloomber preceded it by three weeks or more.
During all this time I was in sore distress of mind, for I had never seen anything either of Gabriel or of her brother since the interview in which the general had discovered the communication which was kept up between us. I had no doubt that some sort of restraint had been placed upon them; and the thought that we had brought trouble on their heads was a bitter one both to my sister and myself.
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Our anxiety, however, was considerably mitigated by the receipt, a couple of days after my last talk with the general, of a note from Mordaunt Heatherstone. This was brought us by a little, ragged urchin, the son of one of the fishermen, who informed us that it had been handed to him at the avenue gate by an old woman—who, I expect, must have been the Cloomber cook.
“MY DEAREST FRIENDS,” it ran, “Gabriel and I have grieved to think how concerned you must be at having neither heard from nor seen us. The fact is that we are compelled to remain in the house. And this compulsion is not physical but moral.
“Our poor father, who gets more and more nervous every day, has entreated us to promise him that we will not go out until after the fifth of October, and to allay his fears we have given him the desired pledge. On the other hand, he has promised us that after the fifth—that is, in less than a week—we shall be as free as air to come or go as we please, so we have something to look forward to.
“Gabriel says that she has explained to you that the governor is always a changed man after this particular date, on which his fears reach a crisis. He apparently has more reason than usual this year to anticipate that trouble is brewing for this unfortunate family, for I have never known him to take so many elaborate precautions or appear so thoroughly unnerved. Who would ever think, to see his bent form and his shaking hands, that he is the same man who used some few short years ago to shoot tigers on foot among the jungles of the Terai, and would laugh at the more timid sportsmen who sought the protection of their elephant’s howdah?
“You know that he has the Victoria Cross, which he won in the streets of Delhi, and yet here he is shivering with terror and starting at every noise, in the most peaceful corner of the world. Oh, the pity of it. West! Remember what I have already told you—that it is no fanciful or imaginary peril, but one which we have every reason to suppose to be most real. It is, however, of such a nature that it can neither be averted nor can it profitably be expressed in words. If all goes well, you will see us at Branksome on the sixth.
“With our fondest love to both of you, I am ever, my dear friends, your attached
“MORDAUNT.”
This letter was a great relief to us as letting us know that the brother and sister were under no physical restraint, but our powerlessness and inability even to comprehend what the danger was which threatened those whom we had come to love better than ourselves was little short of maddening.
Fifty times a day we asked ourselves and asked each other from what possible quarter this peril was to be expected, but the more we thought of it the more hopeless did any solution appear.
In vain we combined our experiences and pieced together every word which had fallen from the lips of any inmate of Cloomber which might be supposed to bear directly or indirectly upon the subject.
At last, weary with fruitless speculation, we were fain to try to drive the matter from our thoughts, consoling ourselves with the reflection that in a few more days all restrictions would be removed, and we should be able to learn from our friends’ own lips.
Those few intervening days, however, would, we feared, be dreary, long ones. And so they would have been, had it not been for a new and most unexpected incident, which diverted our minds from our own troubles and gave them something fresh with which to occupy themselves.

Chapter X: “Of the Letter Which Came from the Hall”

Chapter XI: “Of the Casting Away of the Barque ‘Belinda’”

It must have been eleven or twelve o’clock before I awoke, and it seemed to me in the flood of golden light which streamed into my chamber that the wild, tumultuous episodes of the night before must have formed part of some fantastic dream.
It was hard to believe that the gentle breeze which whispered so softly among the ivy-leaves around my window was caused by the same element which had shaken the very house a few short hours before. It was as if Nature had repented of her momentary passion and was endeavouring to make amends to an injured world by its warmth and its sunshine. A chorus of birds in the garden below filled the whole air with their wonder and congratulations.
Down in the hall I found a number of the shipwrecked sailors, looking all the better for their night’s repose, who set up a buzz of pleasure and gratitude upon seeing me.
Arrangements had been made to drive them to Wigtown, whence they were to proceed to Glasgow by the evening train, and my father had given orders that each should be served with a packet of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs to sustain him on the way.
Captain Meadows thanked us warmly in the name of his employers for the manner in which we had treated them, and he called for three cheers from his crew, which were very heartily given. He and the mate walked down with us after we had broken our fast to have a last look at the scene of the disaster.
The great bosom of the bay was still heaving convulsively, and its waves were breaking into sobs against the rocks, but there was none of that wild turmoil which we had seen in the early morning. The long, emerald ridges, with their little, white crests of foam, rolled slowly and majestically in, to break with a regular rhythm—the panting of a tired monster.
A cable length from the shore we could see the mainmast of the barque floating upon the waves, disappearing at times in the trough of the sea, and then shooting up towards Heaven like a giant javelin, shining and dripping as the rollers tossed it about. Other smaller pieces of wreckage dotted the waters, while innumerable spars and packages were littered over the sands. These were being drawn up and collected in a place of safety by gangs of peasants. I noticed that a couple of broad-winged gulls were hovering and skimming over the scene of the shipwreck, as though many strange things were visible to them beneath the waves. At times we could hear their raucous voices as they cried to one another of what they saw.
“She was a leaky old craft,” said the captain, looking sadly out to sea, “but there’s always a feeling of sorrow when we see the last of a ship we have sailed in. Well, well, she would have been broken up in any case, and sold for firewood.”
“It looks a peaceful scene,” I remarked. “Who would imagine that three men lost their lives last night in those very waters?”
“Poor fellows,” said the captain, with feeling, “Should they be cast up after our departure, I am sure, Mr. West, that you will have them decently interred.”
I was about to make some reply when the mate burst into a loud guffaw, slapping his thigh and choking with merriment.
“If you want to bury them,” he said, “you had best look sharp, or they may clear out of the country. You remember what I said last night? Just look at the top of that ‘ere hillock, and tell me whether I was in the right or not?”
There was a high sand dune some little distance along the coast, and upon the summit of this the figure was standing which had attracted the mate’s attention. The captain threw up his hands in astonishment as his eyes rested upon it.
“By the eternal,” he shouted, “it’s Ram Singh himself! Let us overhaul him!”
Taking to his heels in his excitement he raced along the beach, followed by the mate and myself, as well as by one or two of the fishermen who had observed the presence of the stranger.
The latter, perceiving our approach, came down from his post of observation and walked quietly in our direction, with his head sunk upon his breast, like one who is absorbed in thought.
I could not help contrasting our hurried and tumultuous advance with the gravity and dignity of this lonely Oriental, nor was the matter mended when he raised a pair of steady, thoughtful dark eyes and inclined his head in a graceful, sweeping salutation. It seemed to me that we were like a pack of schoolboys in the presence of a master.
The stranger’s broad, unruffled brow, his clear, searching gaze, firm-set yet sensitive mouth, and clean-cut, resolute expression, all combined to form the most imposing and noble presence which I had ever known. I could not have imagined that such imperturbable calm and at the same time such a consciousness of latent strength could have been expressed by any human face.
He was dressed in a brown velveteen coat, loose, dark trousers, with a shirt that was cut low in the collar, so as to show the muscular, brown neck, and he still wore the red fez which I had noticed the night before.
I observed with a feeling of surprise, as we approached him, that none of these garments showed the slightest indication of the rough treatment and wetting which they must have received during their wearer’s submersion and struggle to the shore.
“So you are none the worse for your ducking,” he said in a pleasant, musical voice, looking from the captain to the mate. “I hope that your poor sailors have found pleasant quarters.”
“We are all safe,” the captain answered. “But we had given you up for lost—you and your two friends. Indeed, I was just making arrangements for your burial with Mr. West here.”
The stranger looked at me and smiled.
“We won’t give Mr. West that trouble for a little time yet,” he remarked; “my friends and I came ashore all safe, and we have found shelter in a hut a mile or so along the coast. It is lonely down there, but we have everything which we can desire.”
“We start for Glasgow this afternoon,” said the captain; “I shall be very glad if you will come with us. If you have not been in England before you may find it awkward traveling alone.”
“We are very much indebted to you for your thoughtfulness,” Ram Singh answered; “but we will not take advantage of your kind offer. Since Nature has driven us here we intend to have a look about us before we leave.”
	portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“As you like,” the captain said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think you are likely to find very much to interest you in this hole of a place.”
“Very possibly not,” Ram Singh answered with an amused smile. “You remember Milton’s lines:
‘The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a hell of Heaven, a heaven of Hell.’
I dare say we can spend a few days here comfortably enough. Indeed, I think you must be wrong in considering this to be a barbarous locality. I am much mistaken if this young gentleman’s father is not Mr. James Hunter West, whose name is known and honoured by the pundits of India.”
“My father is, indeed, a well-known Sanscrit scholar,” I answered in astonishment.
“The presence of such a man,” observed the stranger slowly, “changes a wilderness into a city. One great mind is surely a higher indication of civilization than are incalculable leagues of bricks and mortar.
“Your father is hardly so profound as Sir William Jones, or so universal as the Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, but he combines many of the virtues of each. You may tell him, however, from me that he is mistaken in the analogy which he has traced between the Samoyede and Tamulic word roots.”
“If you have determined to honour our neighbourhood by a short stay,” said I, “you will offend my father very much if you do not put up with him. He represents the laird here, and it is the laird’s privilege, according to our Scottish custom, to entertain all strangers of repute who visit this parish.”
My sense of hospitality prompted me to deliver this invitation, though I could feel the mate twitching at my sleeves as if to warn me that the offer was, for some reason, an objectionable one. His fears were, however, unnecessary, for the stranger signified by a shake of the head that it was impossible for him to accept it.
“My friends and I are very much obliged to you,” he said, “but we have our own reasons for remaining where we are. The hut which we occupy is deserted and partly ruined, but we Easterns have trained ourselves to do without most of those things which are looked upon as necessaries in Europe, believing firmly in that wise axiom that a man is rich, not in proportion to what he has, but in proportion to what he can dispense with. A good fisherman supplies us with bread and with herbs, we have clean, dry straw for our couches; what could man wish for more?”
“But you must feel the cold at night, coming straight from the tropics,” remarked the captain. “Perhaps our bodies are cold sometimes. We have not noticed it. We have all three spent many years in the Upper Himalayas on the border of the region of eternal snow, so we are not very sensitive to inconveniences of the sort.”
“At least,” said I, “you must allow me to send you over some fish and some meat from our larder.”
“We are not Christians,” he answered, “but Buddhists of the higher school. We do not recognize that man has a moral right to slay an ox or a fish for the gross use of his body. He has not put life into them, and has assuredly no mandate from the Almighty to take life from them save under most pressing need. We could not, therefore, use your gift if you were to send it.”
“But, sir,” I remonstrated, “if in this changeable and inhospitable climate you refuse all nourishing food your vitality will fail you—you will die.”
“We shall die then,” he answered, with an amused smile. “And now, Captain Meadows, I must bid you adieu, thanking you for your kindness during the voyage, and you, too, good-bye—you will command a ship of your own before the year is out. I trust, Mr. West, that I may see you again before I leave this part of the country. Farewell!”
He raised his red fez, inclined his noble head with the stately grace which characterized all his actions, and strode away in the direction from which he had come.
“Let me congratulate you, Mr. Hawkins,” said the captain to the mate as we walked homewards. “You are to command your own ship within the year.”
“No such luck!” the mate answered, with a pleased smile upon his mahogany face, “still, there’s no saying how things may come out. What d’ye think of him, Mr. West?”
“Why,” said I, “I am very much interested in him. What a magnificent head and bearing he has for a young man. I suppose he cannot be more than thirty.”
“Forty,” said the mate.
“Sixty, if he is a day,” remarked Captain Meadows. “Why, I have heard him talk quite familiarly of the first Afghan war. He was a man then, and that is close on forty years ago.”
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated. “His skin is as smooth and his eyes are as clear as mine are. He is the superior priest of the three, no doubt.”
“The inferior,” said the captain confidently. “That is why he does all the talking for them. Their minds are too elevated to descend to mere worldly chatter.”
“They are the strangest pieces of flotsam and jetsam that were ever thrown upon this coast,” I remarked. “My father will be mightily interested in them.”
“Indeed, I think the less you have to do with them the better for you,” said the mate. “If I do command my own ship I’ll promise you that I never carry live stock of that sort on board of her. But here we are all aboard and the anchor tripped, so we must bid you good-bye.”
The wagonette had just finished loading up when we arrived, and the chief places, on either side of the driver, had been reserved for my two companions, who speedily sprang into them. With a chorus of cheers the good fellows whirled away down the road, while my father, Esther, and I stood upon the lawn and waved our hands to them until they disappeared behind the Cloomber woods, en route for the Wigtown railway station. Barque and crew had both vanished now from our little world, the only relic of either being the heaps of debris upon the beach, which were to lie there until the arrival of an agent from Lloyd’s.