He stopped and motioned her to be silent, and suddenly lying down looked along the fairly level patch of ground across which they were moving. The landscape was unfamiliar to her. On their left was what looked like a high white cliff, and she saw at its foot the gleam of water.
“That’s the quarry,” he said, following the direction of her eyes. “There is a sort of road running along the top, but it is very dangerous—no rails or wall or anything. People have been killed falling over.”
He stopped again and looked back the way they had come. Evidently he saw something.
“You go on,” he whispered. “Bear to the left. There’s a bit of a wood there. Keep well away from the quarry.”
“Who is it you see?” she asked, her knees trembling.
“I don’t know.” He was deliberately evasive. “You walk on and do as I tell you, and don’t make too much noise.”
She was terrified at the idea of being alone, but his instructions were so urgent that she could not refuse, and, turning, she made in the direction of the little copse which she saw outlined against the sky.
Cawler waited, flat on his face, his eyes watching the figure that was aimlessly wandering left and right, but coming inevitably in his direction. Fear, as we understand fear, Mr. Cawler did not know. His shrewd Cockney wit, allied to a certain ruthlessness in combat, steeled him for the coming encounter. In his hand he gripped a long, steel, flat spanner, the only weapon he had brought with him, and as the great awkward figure loomed up before him, Tom Cawler leapt at him.
The sound of an animal howl of rage, the thud and flurry of battle came to the ears of the fearful girl, and she ran forward blindly. In the dark she stumbled into a tree and dropped, breathless, to the ground; but with a superhuman effort she scrambled to her feet and continued her flight, feeling her way through the closely grown copse. Every minute seemed to bring her to some new impenetrable barrier which defied circumvention.
Now she was clear of the wood and crossing a level stretch of grassland. Again she was climbing. No sound came from behind her. She was ignorant of the direction she was taking, or whither this erratic path of hers would lead; and when she came to another wood, she thought that she had run in a circle and returned to the place whence she had stated. And then, most unexpectedly, she came into a clearing. The moonlight showed the white dome of a rock, and threw into shadow the black gap in its face. She nearly fainted. She was at the mouth of the Selford tombs, and the iron gate was open!
Her heart thumped painfully. It required the exercise of a supreme will to prevent herself from collapsing. Presently, gritting her teeth and commanding her faltering limbs, she walked towards the mouth of the tomb. The key was in the lock, she saw, and peered fearfully down into its dark depths. As she hesitated, she heard something behind her—a deep, sobbing, blubbering sound that froze her blood.
That beast-shape was coming through the wood after her. She reeled against the face of the tomb, her hands gripping the bars of the open gate, and then, with a sudden resolve, half-hysterical with terror, she darted into the mouth of the vault, and, slamming the gate behind her, thrust her hand through the bars, turned the key, and withdrew it.
She listened; there was silence in the tomb, and, creeping down the moss-grown stairs, she reached the first chamber. At the foot of the stairs she waited, listening, and after a while she heard the soft pad of feet above and a sound of crying. She shrank back towards the barred gate which separated the antechamber from the tomb. And then a shadow fell athwart the upper door, and she breathed painfully, her eyes fixed on the steps. Suppose he broke the lock? And she was alone … down here with the dead, in the dark.
She pushed her hand through the bars, and even as she wondered and dreaded, a new horror afflicted her; for her hand was suddenly gripped by a large, cold, clammy paw that had reached out from the darkness of the tomb.
With a scream she turned to face the new terror.
XXV
She could see nothing. Fighting like a tiger to free herself, her other hand passed through the bars and caught a wild tangle of beard.
“Hush!” The voice was deep, supulchral. “I will not harm you if you tell me what you do here.”
It was human, at any rate, more human than the thing that had been chasing her.
“I am Sybil—Lansdown,” she gasped. “I came down here to get away from—a horrible—”
“So!” The grip on her wrist relaxed. “I will open the door. Stand back, if you please; do not move until I have lit the lamp.”
The door was opened and she nearly fell through.
She saw a flicker of flame, heard a glass globe tinkle. He had lit a small kerosene lamp, which cast an eerie light upon the weird scene. She looked at the man curiously. His sallow, lined face; his long black beard, which, with a woman’s intuition, she knew was dyed; his unsavoury frock-coat, splashed and stained till its original colour could only be guessed at; the little black skullcap on the back of his head—all these combined to give him a peculiarly sinister appearance.
In front of the door with seven locks was a small leather holdall, which was open,
