On this subject the Paris Temps recorded that an Arab servant belonging to their correspondent asked the latter whether he had seen any of the returned spirits from Kassassin in recent encounters, and, on being answered in the negative, declared that the correspondent could not see them because he was not an Englishman.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAST OF SIR PAGET.
And now to glance homeward at more civilised scenes—to the catastrophe at Hurdell Hall.
The terrible tidings were soon made known to Eveline that Sir Paget, on the homeward ride from Furzydown, had been suddenly seized by an unaccountable fit of irritation, and, in defiance of all advice and entreaty, though a bad horseman, had lashed and spurred the bay hunter—a vicious brute—while needlessly rushing it at a high fence, and been thrown with terrible violence.
In short, his neck was broken, and he had died on the spot without pain. A door had been procured from an adjoining barnyard, and on this humble bier the body had been brought to the Hall.
As one in a dreadful dream Eveline listened to all this, and the awful shadow of something—something, as yet unthought of and unconceived, fell blackly and bleakly across the dark horizon of her life, as she saw the body borne past her—the body she shrank from touching—borne past her indoors; and a darker shadow would yet fall, when she learned the news from Egypt.
Weakened by all she had undergone hitherto, and overcome by the sudden horror of the present event, Eveline could scarcely stand.
'You cannot go up the staircase to bed,' said Lucretia Hurdell, kindly.
'Oh—yes; yes, I can,' replied Eveline, with dry lips.