Once more, as he walked behind Mr. Quincunx, Dangelis was startled by the extraordinary congruity of that forlorn figure with the occasion and the scene. The form of the recluse seemed to exhale a reciprocity of fearful brooding. Auber Wood seemed aware of him, and ready to welcome him, in consentaneous sympathy. He might have been the long-expected priest of some immemorial rites transacted there, the priest of some old heathen worship, perhaps the worship of generations of dead people, buried under those damp leaves.
It seemed a long while to Ralph Dangelis, in spite of the breathless quickening of his imagination, before the laurel-tunnel thinned away, and the two men were able to walk side by side between the trunks of the larger trees. Here again they encountered Scotch firs.
What strange dream, of what fantastic possessor of this solitude, had shaped itself into the planting of these moorland giants, among the native-born oaks and beeches of this weird place?
The open spaces at the foot of the tree-trunks were filled with an obscure mass of oozy stalks and heavily drooping leaves. The obscurity of the spot made it difficult to discern the differences between these rank growths; but the ghostly flowers of enormous hemlocks stood forth from among the rest. Fungoid excrescences, of some sort or another, were certainly prolific here. Their charnel-house odour set Dangelis thinking of a morgue he had once visited.
At last—and with quite startling suddenness—the path they followed emerged into a wide open expanse; and there,—under the diffused light of the cloud-darkened moon—they saw stretched at their feet the dim surface of Auber Lake.
Mr. Quincunx stood for a moment motionless and silent, leaning upon his stick. Then he turned to his companion; and the American noticed how vague and shadowy his face looked, as if it were a face seen through some more opaque medium than that of air.
They sat down together upon a fallen log; and out of an instinctive desire to break the tension of the spell that lay on him Dangelis lit a cigarette.
He had smoked in silence for some moments, when Mr. Quincunx, who had been listening attentively, raised his hand. “Hark!” he said, “do you hear anything?”
Across the stillness of the water came a low blood-curdling wail. It was hardly a human sound, and yet it was not like the voice of any bird or beast. It seemed to unsettle the drowsy natives of the spot; for a harsh twittering of sedge-birds answered it, and a great water-rat splashed down into the lake.
“God! they were right then,” whispered the American. “They spoke of some mad girl living down here, but I did not believe them. It seemed incredible that such a thing should be allowed. Quick, my friend!—we ought to warn those girls at once and get them away. This is not the sort of thing for them to hear.”