"And there on the top of the bank, not more than thirty feet from us, stood a tall, white, shrouded figure, a female figure, and beside it, seemingly squatting like a monstrous toad, was that dark shape that had no shape. But, though shape it had none, it had eyes—big eyes that burned at us with a greenish, hellish fire.
"White snatched up his rifle and thrust it forward, but I stepped over and shoved the muzzle aside. When we looked up there again, the woman, for a woman, a white woman too, it certainly was—well, she was gone, and with her that formless thing with the hellish fire in its big eyes.
"'What was it?' exclaimed White.
"He rubbed his eyes and stared up there again, then this way and that, all about into the thick vapor.
"'Was it only a dream?'
"'It was real enough,' I told him. 'It was a woman, a white woman.'
"'Or,' put in Long, 'the spirit of one.'
"'I know one thing,' said White: 'she may be a flesh-and-blood creature, and she may be a spirit; but that thing that crouched there beside her was not of this world of ours!'
"He shuddered.
"'Not of this world of ours! Men, what was that thing?'