Then, to his astonishment, Davis saw the stranger pause at a gate on the left of the road, unchain it and walk through, carefully putting the chain up again.
Instantly Davis recognized the gate, and the fact that it was the gate that gave entrance to the field beyond which, hidden by a dip of the fells, lay the cottage of the murder.
He was passing the gate, when the stranger, who was only twenty paces or so away in the field, turned, saw Davis and beckoned to him to follow him.
The moonlight was full on the stranger’s face, and, horrified, Davis recognized that the man before him in the field was Sir Anthony Gyde.
As he stood spellbound, gazing at the murderer, a cloud passed over the moon, and the shadow of the cloud, like a black handkerchief, swept over the field and seemed to sweep Sir Anthony Gyde away. For when the moon returned he was gone.
Then Davis ran, and he did not stop running until he reached the door of his relative. The accounts he gave of the occurrence were so confused as to cast discredit on his narrative, and he was put down as a liar for the strange reason that he was not gifted with the power of story-telling.
Had he seen, or pretended to have seen, the ghost of Klein, every one would have believed him, for every one knew that Klein was dead. But Sir Anthony Gyde was alive, and the countryside were waiting to see him caught and hanged, and no one wished to believe in his ghost for that very reason.
CHAPTER XXXVI
IT was May 9, the day after that on which Mr Davis, away up in Cumberland, had seen what he had seen upon the road to Blencarn.