Found in the Débris.
We were on the alert in a moment.
Though we searched in the darkness for a distance of a hundred yards or more, we failed to come upon either the man or the woman of whom we had caught a brief glimpse as they struggled desperately.
Nor did we again hear the sound of voices. That I had heard Vera’s voice, I felt convinced. We wondered if there was a lodge, and how far it was away. Perhaps the servants had taken shelter there.
“The whole place seems to be deserted,” Faulkner said when, after a futile search, we again found ourselves near the burning château, where the fire had by this time subsided considerably. “And yet there must have been people in the house—at any rate, servants.”
We walked right round the château. What a huge old place it had been! No wonder the fire had taken a long time to reach us, if it had broken out, as it presumably had done, in a wing remote from the room where we had been. Judging by the architecture of the outer walls I concluded that the château must have been built towards the end of the fourteenth century, and afterwards added to.
There was a sharp nip in the air, and we felt chilly enough. Already the streaks of dawn were striving to pierce the belt of leaden clouds, against which the black pinewoods could be seen distinctly outlined.
Faulkner turned to me.
“Have you any money?” he asked.
“Plenty,” I answered. “Why?”