IV

In the Englishman’s mind there came a crash, as though something

fell. There was dust, confusion, noise. Moral platitudes shouted

at conventional admonitions. Warnings laughed and copy-book maxims

shrivelled up. Above the lot, rising with a touch of grandeur, stood

the pulpit figure of the little Pasteur, his big face shining clear

through all the turmoil, strength and vision in the flaming eyes--a

commanding outline with spiritual audacity in his heart. And Hendricks

saw then that the man himself was standing erect in the centre of

the room, one finger raised to command attention--listening. Some

considerable interval must have passed while he struggled with his

inner confusion.

Leysin stood, intently listening, his big head throwing a grotesque

shadow on wall and ceiling.

‘Hark!’ he exclaimed, half whispering. ‘Do you hear that? Listen.’

A deep sound, confused and roaring, passed across the night, far away,

and slightly booming. It entered the little room so that the air seemed

to tremble a moment. To Hendricks it held something ominous.

‘The wind,’ he whispered, as the noise died off into the distance; ‘yet

a moment ago the night was still enough. The stars were shining.’ There

was tense excitement in the room just then. It showed in Leysin’s face,

which had gone white as a cloth. Hendricks himself felt extraordinarily

stirred.

‘Not wind, but human voices,’ the older man said quickly. ‘It’s

shouting. Listen!’ and his eyes ran round the room, coming to rest

finally in a corner where his hat and cloak hung from a nail. A gesture

accompanied the look. He wanted to be out. The tutor half rose to take

his leave. ‘You have duties to-night elsewhere,’ he stammered. ‘I’m

forgetting.’ His own instinct was to get away himself with Bindy by the

first early diligence. He was afraid of yielding.

‘Hush!’ whispered Leysin peremptorily. ‘Listen!’

He opened the window at the top, and through the crack, where the stars

peeped brightly, there came, louder than before, the uproar of human

voices floating through the night from far away. The air of the great

pine forests came in with it. Hendricks listened intently a moment. He

positively jumped to feel a hand upon his arm. Leysin’s big head was

thrust close up into his face.

‘That’s the commotion in the village,’ he whispered. ‘A messenger has

come and gone; some one has gone back with him. To-night I shall be

needed--down here, but to-morrow night when the great ritual takes

place--up there----!’

Hendricks tried to push him away so as not to hear the words; but the

little man seemed immovable as a rock. The impulse remained probably

in the mind without making the muscles work. For the tutor, sorely

tempted, longed to dare, yet faltered in his will.

‘----if you felt like taking the risk,’ the words continued

seductively, ‘we might place the empty vessel near enough to let it

fill, then rescue it, charged with energy, in the nick of time.’ And

the Pasteur’s eyes were aglow with enthusiasm, his voice even trembling

at the thought of high adventure to save another’s soul.

‘Watch merely?’ Hendricks heard his own voice whisper, hardly aware

that he was saying it, ‘without taking part?’ He said it thickly,

stupidly, a man wavering and unsure of himself. ‘It would be an

experience,’ he stammered. ‘I’ve never----’

‘Merely watch, yes; look on; let him see,’ interrupted the other with

eagerness. ‘We must be very careful. It’s worth trying--a last resort.’

They still stood close together. Hendricks felt the little man’s breath

on his face as he peered up at him.

‘I admit the chance,’ he began weakly.

‘There is no chance,’ was the vigorous reply, ‘there is only

Providence. You have been guided.’

‘But as to risk and failure, what of them? What’s involved?’ he asked,

recklessness increasing in him.

‘New wine in old bottles,’ was the answer. ‘But here, you tell me, the

vessel is not damaged, but merely empty. The machinery is all right. If

he merely watches, as from a little distance----’

‘Yes, yes, the machinery _is_ there, I agree. The boy has breeding,

health, and all the physical qualities--good blood and nerves and

muscles. It’s only that life refuses to stay and drive them.’ His heart

beat with violence even as he said it; he felt the energy and zeal from

the older man pour into him. He was realising in himself on a smaller

scale what might take place with the boy in large. But still he shrank.

Leysin for the moment said no more. His spiritual discernment was equal

to his boldness. Having planted the seed, he left it to grow or die.

The decision was not for him.

* * * * *

In the light of the single lamp the two men sat facing each other,

listening, waiting, while Leysin talked occasionally, but in the

main kept silence. Some time passed, though how long the tutor could

not say. In his mind was wild confusion. How could he justify such

a mad proposal? Yet how could he refuse the opening, preposterous

though it seemed? The enticement was very great; temptation rushed

upon him. Striving to recall his normal world, he found it difficult.

The face of the old Marquess seemed a mere lifeless picture on a

wall--it watched but could not interfere. Here was an opportunity to

take or leave. He fought the battle in terms of naked souls, while

the ordinary four-cornered morality hid its face awhile. He heard

himself explaining, delaying, hedging, half-toying with the problem.

But the redemption of a soul was at stake, and he tried to forget the

environment and conditions of modern thought and belief. Sentences

flashed at him out of the battle: ‘I must take him back worse than

when I started, or--what? A violent being like Marston, or a redeemed,

converted system with new energy? It’s a chance, and my last.’

Moreover, odd, half-comic detail--there was the support of the Church,

of a protestant clergyman whose fundamental beliefs were similar to the

evangelical persuasions of the boy’s family. Conversion, as demoniacal

possession, were both traditions of the blood. After all, the old

Marquess might understand and approve. ‘You took the opening God set in

your way in His wisdom. You showed faith and courage. Far be it from me

to condemn you.’ The picture on the wall looked down at him and spoke

the words.

The wild hypothesis of the intrepid little missionary-pasteur swept him

with an effect like hypnotism. Then, suddenly, something in him seemed

to decide finally for itself. He flung himself, morality and all, upon

this vigorous other personality. He leaned across the table, his face

close to the lamp. His voice shook as he spoke.

‘Would _you_?’ he asked--then knew the question foolish, and that such

a man would shrink from nothing where the redemption of a soul was at

stake; knew also that the question was proof that his own decision was

already made.

There was something grotesque almost in the torrent of colloquial

French Leysin proceeded to pour forth, while the other sat listening in

amazement, half ashamed and half exhilarated. He looked at the stalwart

figure, the wiry bowed legs as he paced the floor, the shortness of the

coat-sleeves and the absence of shirt-cuffs round the powerful lean

wrists. It was a great fighting man he watched, a man afraid of nothing

in heaven or earth, prepared to lead a forlorn hope into a hostile

unknown land. And the sight, combined with what he heard, set the seal

upon his half-hearted decision. He would take the risk and go.

‘Pfui!’ exclaimed the little Pasteur as though it might have been an

oath, his loud whisper breaking through into a guttural sound, ‘pfui!

Bah! Would that _my_ people had machinery like that so that I could use

it! I’ve no material to work on, no force to direct, nothing but heavy,

sodden clay. Jelly!’ he cried, ‘negative, useless, lukewarm stuff at

best.’ He lowered his voice suddenly, so as to listen at the same time.

‘I might as well be a baker kneading dough,’ he continued. ‘They drink

and yield and drink again; they never attack and drive; they’re not

worth labouring to save.’ He struck the wooden table with his fist,

making the lamp rattle, while his listener started and drew back. ‘What

good can weak souls, though spotless, be to God? The best have long

ago gone up to them,’ and he jerked his leonine old head towards the

mountains. ‘Where there’s _life_ there’s hope,’ he stamped his foot as

he said it, ‘but the lukewarm--pfui!--I will spue them out of my mouth!’

He paused by the window a moment, listened attentively, then resumed

his pacing to and fro. Clearly, he longed for action. Indifference,

half-heartedness had no place in his composition. And Hendricks felt

his own slower blood take fire as he listened.

‘Ah!’ cried Leysin louder, ‘what a battle I could fight up there for

God, could I but live among them, stem the flow of their dark strong

vitality, then twist it round and up, up, up!’ And he jerked his finger

skywards. ‘It’s the great sinners we want, not the meek-faced saints.

There’s energy enough among those devils to bring a whole Canton to the

great Footstool, could I but direct it.’ He paused a moment, standing

over his astonished visitor. ‘Bring the boy up with you, and let him

drink his fill. And pray, pray, I say, that he become a violent sinner

first in order that later there shall be something worth offering to

God. Over one _sinner_ that repenteth----’

A rapid, nervous knocking interrupted the flow of words, and the figure

of a woman stood upon the threshold. With the opening of the door came

also again the roaring from the night outside. Hendricks saw the tall,

somewhat dishevelled outline of the wife--he remembered her vaguely,

though she could hardly see him now in his darker corner--and recalled

the fact that she had been sent out to Leysin in his missionary days,

a worthy, illiterate, but adoring woman. She wore a shawl, her hair was

untidy, her eyes fixed and staring. Her husband’s sturdy little figure,

as he rose, stood level with her chin.

‘You hear it, Jules?’ she whispered thickly. ‘The _joran_ has brought

them down. You’ll be needed in the village.’ She said it anxiously,

though Hendricks understood the _patois_ with difficulty. They talked

excitedly together a moment in the doorway, their outlines blocked

against the corridor where a single oil lamp flickered. She warned,

urging something; he expostulated. Fragments reached Hendricks in his

corner. Clearly the woman worshipped her husband like a king, yet

feared for his safety. He, for his part, comforted her, scolded a

little, argued, told her to ‘believe in God and go back to bed.’

‘They’ll take you too, and you’ll never return. It’s not your parish

anyhow ...’ a touch of anguish in her tone.

But Leysin was impatient to be off. He led her down the passage. ‘My

parish is wherever I can help. I belong to God. Nothing can harm me but

to leave undone the work He gives me.’ The steps went farther away as

he guided her to the stairs. Outside the roar of voices rose and fell.

Wind brought the drifting sound, wind carried it away. It was like the

thunder of the sea.

And the Englishman, using the little scene as a flashlight upon his own

attitude, saw it for an instant as God might have seen it. Leysin’s

point of view was high, scanning a very wide horizon. His eye being

single, the whole body was full of light. The risk, it suddenly seemed,

was--nothing; to shirk it, indeed, the merest cowardice.

He went up and seized the Pasteur’s hand.

‘To-morrow,’ he said, a trifle shakily perhaps, yet looking straight

into his eyes. ‘If we stay over--I’ll bring the lad with me--provided

he comes willingly.’

‘You will stay over,’ interrupted the other with decision. ‘Come to

supper at seven. Come in mountain boots. Use persuasion, but not force.

He shall see it from a distance--without taking part.’

‘From a distance--yes,’ the tutor repeated, ‘but without taking part.’

‘I know the signs,’ the Pasteur broke in significantly. ‘We can rescue

him in the nick of time--charged with energy and life, yet before the

danger gets----’

A sudden clangour of bells drowned the whispering voice, cutting the

sentence in the middle. It was like an alarm of fire. Leysin sprang

sharply round.

‘The signal!’ he cried; ‘the signal from the church. Some one’s been

taken. I must go at once--I shall be needed.’ He had his hat and cloak

on in a moment, was through the passage and into the street, Hendricks

following at his heels. The whole place seemed alive. Yet the roadway

was deserted, and no lights showed at the windows of the houses. Only

from the farther end of the village, where stood the cabaret, came a

roar of voices, shouting, crying, singing. The impression was that the

population was centred there. Far in the starry sky a line of fires

blazed upon the heights, throwing a lurid reflection above the deep

black valley. Excitement filled the night.

‘But how extraordinary!’ exclaimed Hendricks, hurrying to overtake his

alert companion; ‘what life there is about! Everything’s on the rush.’

They went faster, almost running. ‘I feel the waves of it beating even

here.’ He followed breathlessly.

‘A messenger has come--and gone,’ replied Leysin in a sharp, decided

voice. ‘What you feel here is but the overflow. This is the aftermath.

I must work down here with my people----’

‘I’ll work with you,’ began the other. But Leysin stopped him.

‘Keep yourself for to-morrow night--up there,’ he said with grave

authority, pointing to the fiery line upon the heights, and at the same

time quickening his pace along the street. ‘At the moment,’ he cried,

looking back, ‘your place is yonder.’ He jerked his head towards the

carpenter’s house among the vineyards. The next minute he was gone.

V

And Hendricks, accredited tutor to a sprig of nobility in the twentieth

century, asked himself suddenly how such things could possibly be. The

adventure took on abruptly a touch of nightmare. Only the light in

the sky above the cabaret windows, and the roar of voices where men

drank and sang, brought home the reality of it all. With a shudder of

apprehension he glanced at the lurid glare upon the mountains. He was

committed now; not because he had merely promised, but because he had

definitely made up his mind.

Lighting a match, he saw by his watch that the visit had lasted over

two hours. It was after eleven. He hurried, letting himself in with

the big house-key, and going on tiptoe up the granite stairs. In his

mind rose a picture of the boy as he had known him all these weary,

sight-seeing months--the mild brown eyes, the facile indolence, the

pliant, watery emotions of the listless creature, but behind him now,

like storm clouds, the hopes, desires, fears the Pasteur’s talk had

conjured up. The yearning to save stirred strongly in his heart, and

more and more of the little man’s reckless spiritual audacity came

with it. His own affection for the lad was genuine, but impatience

and adventure pushed eagerly through the tenderness. If only, oh, if

only he could put life into that great six-foot, big-boned frame!

Some energy as of fire and wind into that inert machinery of mind and

body! The idea was utterly incredible, but surely no harm could come

of trying the experiment. There _were_ the huge and elemental forces,

of course, in Nature, and if ... A sound in the bedroom, as he crept

softly past the door, caught his attention, and he paused a moment to

listen. Lord Ernie was not asleep, then, after all. He wondered why the

sound got somehow at his heart. There was shuffling behind the door;

there was a voice, too--or was it voices? He knocked.

‘Who is it?’ came at once, in a tone he hardly recognised. And, as he

answered, ‘It’s I, Mr. Hendricks; let me in,’ there followed a renewal

of the shuffling, but without the sound of voices, and the door flew

open--it was not even locked. Lord Ernie stood before him, dressed to

go out. In the faint starlight the tall ungainly figure filled the

doorway, erect and huge, the shoulders squared, the trunk no longer

drooping. The listlessness was gone. He stood upright, limbs straight

and alert; the sagging limp had vanished from the knees. He looked, in

this semi-darkness, like another person, almost monstrous. And the

tutor drew back instinctively, catching an instant at his breath.

‘But, my dear boy! why aren’t you asleep?’ he stammered. He glanced

half nervously about him. ‘I heard you talking, surely?’ He fumbled for

a match; but, before he found it, the other had turned on the electric

switch. The light flared out. There was no one else in the room. ‘Is

anything wrong with you? What’s the matter?’

But the boy answered quietly, though in a deeper voice than Hendricks

had ever known in him before:

‘I’m all right; only I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been watching those fires

on the mountains. I--I wanted to go out and see.’

He still held the field-glasses in his hand, swinging them vigorously

by the strap. The room was littered with clothes, just unpacked,

the heavy shooting boots in the middle of the floor; and Hendricks,

noticing these signs, felt a wave of excitement sweep through him,

caught somehow from the presence of the boy. There was a sense of

vitality in the room--as though a rush of active movement had just

passed through it. Both windows stood wide open, and the roar of voices

was clearly audible. Lord Ernie turned his head to listen.

‘That’s only the village people drinking and shouting,’ said Hendricks,

closely watching each movement that he made. ‘It’s perfectly natural,

Bindy, that you feel too excited to sleep. We’re in the mountains.

The air stimulates tremendously--it makes the heart beat faster.’ He

decided not to press the lad with questions.

‘But I never felt like this in the Rockies or the Himalayas,’ came the

swift rejoinder, as he moved to the window and looked out. ‘There was

nothing in India or Japan like _that_!’ He swept his hand towards

the wooded heights that towered above the village so close. He talked

volubly. ‘All those things we saw out there were sham--done on purpose

for tourists. Up there it’s real. I’ve been watching through the

glasses till--I felt I simply must go out and join it. You can see men

dancing round the fires, and big, rushing women. Oh, Mr. Hendricks,

isn’t it all glorious--all too glorious and ripping for words!’ And his

brown eyes shone like lamps.

‘You mean that it’s spontaneous, natural?’ the other guided him,

welcoming the new enthusiasm, yet still bewildered by the startling

change. It was not mere nerves he saw. There was nothing morbid in it.

‘They’re doing it, I mean, because they have to,’ came the decided

answer, ‘and because they feel it. They’re not just copying the world.’

He put his hand upon the other’s arm. There was dry heat in it that

Hendricks felt even through his clothes. ‘And that’s what _I_ want,’

the boy went on, raising his voice; ‘what I’ve always wanted without

knowing it--real things that can make me alive. I’ve often had it in my

dreams, you know, but now I’ve found it.’

‘But I didn’t know. You never told me of those dreams.’

The boy’s cheeks flushed, so that the colour and the fire in his eyes

made him positively splendid. He answered slowly, as out of some part

he had hitherto kept deliberately concealed.

‘Because I never could get hold of it in words. It sounded so silly

even to myself, and I thought Father would train it all away and

laugh at it. It’s awfully far down in me, but it’s so real I knew

it must come out one day, and that I should find it. Oh, I say,

Mr. Hendricks,’ and he lowered his voice, leaning out across the

window-sill suddenly, ‘_that_ fills me up and feeds me’--he pointed

to the heights--‘and gives me life. The life I’ve seen till now was

only a kind of show. It starved me. I want to go up there and feel it

pouring through my blood.’ He filled his lungs with the strong mountain

air, and paused while he exhaled it slowly, as though tasting it with

delight and understanding. Then he burst out again, ‘I vote we go. Will

you come with me? What d’you say. Eh?’

They stared at each other hard a moment. Something as primitive and

irresistible as love passed through the air between them. With a great

effort the older man kept the balance true.

‘Not to-night, not now,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s too late. To-morrow, if

you like--with pleasure.’

‘But to-morrow _night_,’ cried the boy with a rush, ‘when the fires are

blazing and the wind is loose. Not in the stupid daylight.’

‘All right. To-morrow night. And my old friend, Monsieur Leysin, shall

be our guide. He knows the way, and he knows the people too.’

Lord Ernie seized his hands with enthusiasm. His vigour was so

disconcerting that it seemed to affect his physical appearance. The

body grew almost visibly; his very clothes hung on him differently;

he was no longer a nonentity yawning beneath an ancient pedigree and

title; he was an aggressive personality. The boy in him rushed into

manhood, as it were, while still retaining boyish speech and gesture.

It was uncanny. ‘We’ll go more than once, I vote; go again and again.

This _is_ a place and a half. It’s _my_ place with a vengeance----!’

‘Not exactly the kind of place your father would wish you to linger

in,’ his tutor interrupted. ‘But we might stay a day or two--especially

as you like it so.’

‘It’s far better than the towns and the rotten embassies; better

than fifty Simlas and Bombays and filthy Cairos,’ cried the other

eagerly. ‘It’s just the thing I need, and when I get home I’ll show ’em

something. I’ll prove it. Why, they simply won’t know me!’ He laughed,

and his face shone with a kind of vivid radiance in the glare of the

electric light. The transformation was more than curious. Waiting a

moment to see if more would follow, Hendricks moved slowly then towards

the door, with the remark that it was advisable now to go to bed since

they would be up late the following night--when he noticed for the

first time that the pillow and sheets were crumpled and that the bed

had already been lain in. The first suspicion flashed back upon him

with new certainty.

Lord Ernie was already taking off his heavy coat, preparatory to

undressing. He looked up quickly at the altered tone of voice.

‘Bindy,’ the tutor said with a touch of gravity, ‘you _were_ alone just

now--weren’t you--of course?’

The other sat up from stooping over his boots. With his hands resting

on the bed behind him, he looked straight into his companion’s eyes.

Lying was not among his faults. He answered slowly after a decided

interval.

‘I--I was asleep,’ he whispered, evidently trying to be accurate,

yet hesitating how to describe the thing he had to say, ‘and had a

dream--one of my real, vivid dreams when something happens. Only, this

time, it was more real than ever before. It was’--he paused, searching

for words, then added--‘sweet and awful.’

And Hendricks repeated the surprising sentence. ‘Sweet and awful,

Bindy! What in the world do you mean, boy?’

Lord Ernie seemed puzzled himself by the choice of words he used.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ he went on honestly, ‘only I mean that it was

awfully real and splendid, a bit of my own life somewhere--somewhere

else--where it lies hidden away behind a lot of days and months that

choke it up. I can never get at it except in woods and places, quite

alone, hearing the wind or making fires, or--in sleep.’ He hid his face

in his hands a moment, then looked up with a hint of censure in his

eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that such things _were_ done? You never

told me,’ he repeated.

‘I didn’t know it myself until this evening. Leysin----’

‘I thought you knew everything,’ Lord Ernie broke in in that same

half-chiding tone.

‘Monsieur Leysin told me to-night for the first time,’ said Hendricks

firmly, ‘that such people and such practices existed. Till now I had

never dreamed that such superstitions survived anywhere in the world

at all.’ He resented the reproach. But he was also aware that the boy

resented his authority. For the first time his ascendency seemed in

question; his voice, his eye, his manner did not quell as formerly.

‘So you mean, when you say “sweet and awful,” that it was very real to

you?’ he asked. He insisted now with purpose. ‘Is that it, Bindy?’

The other replied eagerly enough. ‘Yes, that’s it, I think--partly.

This time it was more than dreaming. It was real. I got there. I

remembered. That’s what I meant. And after I woke up the thing still

went on. The man seemed still in the room beside the bed, calling me to

get up and go with him----’

‘Man! What man?’ The tutor leant upon the back of a chair to steady

himself. The wind just then went past the open windows with a singing

rush.

‘The dark man who passed us in the village, and who pointed to the

fires on the heights. He came with the wind, you remember. He pulled my

coat.’

The boy stood up as he said it. He came across the naked boarding, his

step light and dancing. ‘Fire that heats but does not burn, and wind

that blows the heart alight, or something--I forget now exactly. _You_

heard it too.’ He whispered the words with excitement, raising his arms

and knees as in the opening movements of a dance.

Hendricks kept his own excitement down, but with a distinctly conscious

effort.

‘I heard nothing of the kind,’ he said calmly. ‘I was only thinking of

getting home dry. You say,’ he asked with decision, ‘that you _heard_

those words?’

Lord Ernie stood back a little. It was not that he wished to conceal,

but that he felt uncertain how to express himself. ‘In the street,’ he

said, ‘I heard nothing; the words rose up in my own head, as it were.

But in the dream, and afterwards too, when I was wide awake, I heard

them out loud, clearly: Fire that heats but does not burn, and wind

that blows the heart to flame--that’s how it was.’

‘In French, Bindy? You heard it in French?’

‘Oh, it was no language at all. The eyes said it--both times.’ He

spoke as naturally as though it was the Durbah he described again.

Only this new aggressive certainty was in his voice and manner.

‘Mr. Hendricks,’ he went on eagerly, ‘_you_ understand what I mean,

don’t you? When certain people look at one, words start up in the

mind as though one heard them spoken. I heard the words in my head,

I suppose; only they seemed so familiar, as though I’d known them

before--always----’

‘Of course, Bindy, I understand. But this man--tell me--did he stay on

after you woke up? And how did he go?’ He looked round at the barely

furnished room for hiding-places. ‘It was really the dream you carried

on after waking, wasn’t it?’

Then Bindy laughed, but inwardly, as to himself. There was the faintest

possible hint of derision in his voice. ‘No doubt,’ he said; ‘only it

was one of my big, real dreams. And how he went I can’t explain at

all, for I didn’t see. You knocked at the door; I turned, and found

myself standing in the room, dressed to go out. There was a rush of

wind outside the window--and when I looked he was no longer there.

The same minute you came in. It was all as quick as that. I suppose I

dressed--in my sleep.’

They stood for several minutes, staring at each other without speaking.

The tutor hesitated between several courses of action, unable, for the

life of him, to decide upon any particular one. His instinct on the

whole was to stop nothing, but to encourage all possible expression,

while keeping rigorous watch and guard. Repression, it seemed to him

just then, was the least desirable line to take. Somewhere there was

truth in the affair. He felt out of his depth, his authority impaired,

and under these temporary disadvantages he might so easily make a

grave mistake, injuring instead of helping. While Lord Ernie finished

his undressing he leaned out of the window, taking great draughts of

the keen night air, watching the blazing fires and listening to the

roar of voices, now dying down into the distance.

And the voice of his thinking whispered to him, ‘Let it all come out.

Repress nothing. Let him have the entire adventure. If it’s nonsense

it can’t injure, and if it’s true it’s inevitable.’ He drew his head

in and moved towards the door. ‘Then it’s settled,’ he said quietly,

as though nothing unusual had happened; ‘we’ll go up there to-morrow

night--with Monsieur Leysin to show us the way. And you’ll go to sleep

now, won’t you? For to-morrow we may be up very late. Promise me,

Bindy.’

‘I’m dead tired,’ came the answer from the sheets. ‘I certainly shan’t

dream any more, if that’s what you mean. I promise.’

Hendricks turned the light out and went softly from the room. He could

always trust the boy.

‘Good-night, Bindy,’ he said.

‘Good-night,’ came the drowsy reply.

Upstairs he lingered a long time over his own undressing, listening,

waiting, watching for the least sound below. But nothing happened.

Once, for his own peace of mind, he stole stealthily downstairs to the

boy’s door; then, reassured by the heavy breathing that was distinctly

audible, he went up finally and got into bed himself. The night was

very still now. It was cool, and the stars were brilliant over lake and

forest and mountain. No voices broke the silence. He only heard the

tinkle of the little streams beyond the vineyards. And by midnight he

was sound asleep.