Mrs. Orban," called a voice softly—a familiar English-speaking voice; "Mrs. Orban, are you still up?"

Mother and son fell apart, and Eustace sprang to his feet.

"Why, it is Bob!" he exclaimed in bewilderment.

"Bob!" cried his mother. "Impossible!"

"Not a bit," said Bob Cochrane, coming round into the streak of lamplight, carrying his boots in his hands. "I just strolled over to see if you were all right. When I got to the steps it struck me I might startle you if I came thundering up, so I took my boots off and crept round to find out where you were. You were so quiet I thought you must have gone to bed and left the lights burning."

"We were talking, nevertheless, when you arrived," Mrs. Orban said, "for I was telling Eustace a story."

"I didn't hear you," Bob said. "Probably my heart was in my mouth, and beating so loud that it deafened me; for, of course, I knew I carried my life in my hand."

"Your life in your hand?" repeated Eustace wonderingly."Certainly. I felt sure you would bound on me with a revolver the moment you heard me, shoot me dead, and then demand an explanation. It is the sort of ardent thing one might expect from a knight of your order, Sir Eustace."

Bob's chaff went deeper home than he meant it to. Eustace was in no mood for joking after the strain of the last few minutes. He hoped with all his heart that Mrs. Orban would not betray to Bob how terror-stricken he had just shown himself. Perhaps she understood, or it may be that she was half ashamed of her own unnecessary panic, for she only said,—

"It is really very good of you to have come in the face of that grave peril, and at such an hour too."

"Well, the fact is I wanted to," Bob said in his casual way, "and the mater insisted. I've left our old foreman sleeping in the house for to-night, and I thought I would just turn in with Eustace, if you don't mind."

"We shall be simply delighted," Mrs. Orban said, with a feeling of real relief.

"The mater wants me to take you all back to the Highlands early to-morrow," Bob went on; "you, Becky, and Eustace. She can't bear to think of your loneliness here. Do come and stay with us till Mr. Orban comes back."

It was the kind of thought good, homely little Mrs. Cochrane was celebrated for. But Mrs. Orban shook her head.

"It is just like your mother to think of such a thing," she said, "and just like her son to be her messenger so readily, but I can't do it, Bob. I couldn't possibly leave the maids and the house to take care of themselves. Mary and Kate would be terrified."

"Oh, bother Mary and Kate!" said Bob.

"I should be most bothered if they took it into their heads to run away and leave us, especially now that my sister is coming. No, really, I cannot leave home, much as I should enjoy it. Your mother, as an experienced housekeeper, will feel for me in that."

"We forgot the maids and the house," said Bob in a disappointed tone.

"It can't be helped," said Mrs. Orban lightly; "and, indeed, we are quite all right. There is nothing to be afraid of, and I have Eustace.—Which reminds me, old man, hadn't you better be off to bed? This is considerably later than I meant you to be."

"Oh but, mother," Eustace exclaimed, "what about Aunt Dorothy? I couldn't sleep without the rest of that story."

"Oh yes, do let's have the rest of the story first," pleaded Bob.

"There isn't much left now," said Mrs. Orban. "I was only telling him how we once lost Dorothy in a game of hide-and-seek when she was five years old. We had been hunting the house for hours; a sort of awful silence had fallen among us, as if we were expecting I don't know what—"

"When close upon midnight," quoted Eustace in a mysterious voice.

"There arose the cry of a terror-stricken child—shriek upon shriek—feeble because of the distance it was from the great hall, where we were all mustered in shivering silence, but distinct enough to be recognized as Dorothy's voice. I shall never forget it—it makes me shudder now—for the panic in that child's cry was appalling. What was being done to her? What awful pain was she in that she should shriek in such a way? Such were our thoughts as we hurried in a tumbling mass after father and mother. We reached the turret stairs, and father commanded every one with lanterns to go first and light the way. Right to the very top we went, into the little round room we called the Watchman's Nest, and here the sounds were loudest; but they were still muffled, and there was not a sign of Dorothy anywhere."

"Was there any furniture for her to hide in?" asked Eustace, looking puzzled.

"One table, one chair," said Mrs. Orban, "and a small black oak cupboard against the inner wall—it would have just about held Dorothy on the lower shelf. We opened it, flashed in our lanterns, but it was black and empty. One peculiar feature there was about it—when the cupboard door was open we heard the child more clearly. It seemed a stupid, senseless thing to do, but down I went on my hands and knees to feel those empty shelves, as if I imagined Dorothy might be there in spite of our seeing nothing—invisible but tangible. Of course there was nothing but wood to touch; but with my head inside there, I could hear Dorothy so well I might have been in the same room with her."

"How queer!" Eustace broke out excitedly.

"'Dorothy, Dorothy,' I shouted. 'Mother—I want mother, mother, mother,' she shrieked. 'Where are you? Tell us where you are,' I called. 'I want mother, mother, mother,' was the only answer. 'Mother is here,' I said; and again, 'Tell us where you are.' Something made me feel the cupboard again, and this time I did not only touch the shelves, but put my hand right back. 'Quick, quick! a lantern,' I simply screamed, and half a dozen were lowered instantly. There was no back to the cupboard on the lower shelf. The blackness we had mistaken for the old oak was just nothingness—a deep, deep hollow into the wall."

"Mother," Eustace cried, "a secret chamber!"

"A secret chamber that no one had ever suspected; and Dorothy it was who had found it."

"But how?" The question came from Bob Cochrane.

"She was the most daring child I have ever known," said Mrs. Orban. "I don't think Dorothy knew what fear meant in those days. She knew that scarcely any one ever searched the turret, because it was difficult to get away from, and it entered her small head to creep up to the Watchman's Nest and into this cupboard. Whether she went to sleep waiting for us to find her, or whether she rolled over at once and fell down the little flight of steps into the secret chamber, to lie there stunned, no one knows. Dorothy could not explain herself. Anyhow, there she was, and the moment she came to her senses and found herself in the dark she began to scream with fright."

"But how was it no one had ever discovered the secret chamber before?" demanded Eustace. "It seems funny.""You would not think so if you saw the cupboard," Mrs. Orban said. "It is a little, insignificant-looking thing—low and rather deep, and, as we then found, built into the wall. The back of the lower shelf was a sliding panel; and your grandfather's theory is that the last person who used the secret chamber left the panel open. Without nearly standing on one's head it was impossible to see the back of the lower shelf, and no one had ever suspected such a thing."

"O Bob, Bob, wouldn't you just like to see Maze Court?" cried Eustace. "I shall never be happy till I do."

"I tell you you will all be off on Miss Dorothy's broomstick one of these fine days," growled Bob. "She is a witch, and she has already bewitched you, for you can talk of nothing but England now."

"You had better go to bed, Eustace," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh. "Bob is getting quite fierce."

Bob left very early next day to get back to work. As Nesta and Peter were having holidays, Eustace, of course, did no lessons, but spent the day very contentedly helping his mother. She was busy rearranging furniture in the room that was to be Miss Chase's, and they scarcely sat down the whole day till evening.

"Early to bed this night, my son," said Mrs. Orban as they left the dinner-table. "I expect you will sleep like a top."

He was looking sleepy already, and a quarter of an hour later went very readily to his room, with a parting entreaty to his mother that she would not sit up late."Not I," was the laughing rejoinder. "I promise you I will only write one little line to father and begin my mail letter to grannie, and then I will go to bed."

This Mrs. Orban did, and being very tired she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

For several hours a great silence reigned over the house; but even when it was broken by the soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet creeping stealthily round the veranda, the sleepers lay utterly unconscious. The stairs had not creaked under the weight of this figure; it cast no shadows, for there was no light either within the house or without. At every window it halted, listened, peered in, as if it had the eyes of a cat to see with in the dark.

First came the dining-room, and next it the room in which Eustace and Peter slept. Round the corner were Mrs. Orban's room and part of the drawing-room. At the other corner was Nesta's room, where Miss Chase would also sleep, and next to that the servants' room.

The strange visitor made a complete tour of the veranda and reached the stair again.

Eustace was dreaming vividly. He was out with Nesta and Becky. Becky had been specially entrusted to their care, and they had been told only to go a little way into the scrub. As a rule the children were not allowed to go into the scrub without a grown-up in charge, for there were dangers among the thick bushy undergrowth known by this odd name. For one thing, snakes abounded there; for another, it was only too easy to lose one's bearings, wander farther and farther into the wood, and eventually die of thirst and starvation, utterly unable to find the way home again. To Eustace's distraction, in his dream Becky would insist on playing hide-and-seek, and kept constantly disappearing and returning, flitting on in front of them now and again like a will-o'-the-wisp.

"We mustn't let her do it," Eustace exclaimed. "Run, Nesta; we must catch her."

But the faster they ran, the farther Becky went; it was extraordinary how fast she could go.

"I can't keep up," Nesta panted.

"Just like a girl," puffed Eustace back, for he was getting exhausted himself.

Then Becky disappeared right out of sight, and though Eustace called her till the echoes rang again and again with her name, there came no answer.

"Now I guess we shall all be lost," thought Eustace desperately.

He was rushing madly hither and thither, when suddenly he heard a blood-curdling yell not very far off. It was followed by another and another, till his heart stood still with terror.

"Of course," he said, pulling himself together with all his might, "she must be in the secret chamber. I never thought of that."

But even as the notion flashed into his mind he knew how silly it was to think of a secret chamber in the Bush. He was so paralyzed by the awfulness of the sounds that for a moment he could not move; but at last, with a mighty effort, he forced himself to dart forward in the direction whence the cries came.

A second later he was fighting blindly with some thing that clung unpleasantly to him. It took him a moment to realize that this was the mosquito net round his bed. He was out on the floor in his own room at home. He had been dreaming, and was now awake; but the screams continued, and were most horribly real. It was not Becky's voice—no child could have cried like that.

There was a door from his room into Mrs. Orban's, and through this the boy dashed.

"Mother, mother," he cried, "what is happening?"

There was a light in the room. Mrs. Orban was standing with a look of terror on her face.

"I don't know," she said unsteadily.

"It has been going on for ages," Eustace whispered.

But Mrs. Orban shook her head. "It has only just begun," she said. "I must go and see what is the matter."

Eustace was haunted by his dream—a second in a dream is equivalent to hours of real life.

"O mother, don't go!" he exclaimed in an agonized voice, and clung to her.

"I must," was the answer, and gently but firmly Mrs. Orban put the boy from her. "Perhaps one of the servants is ill. At least they are both frightened, and need me. Stay here with Becky."

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the door burst open, and in rushed Mary, followed by Kate. Both girls looked half mad with fear.

"O ma'am, ma'am," they cried, piecing out the tale between them, "there was a black-fellow in our room. He has stolen our watches from under our pillows, and everything he could find before we woke, and he was pulling the rings off Mary's finger when she felt him and jumped out of bed. But he got the rings, and we don't know where he is—somewhere about the house—and maybe there are others with him. O ma'am, whatever shall we do? We shall all be murdered in our beds."

"Nonsense, you silly girls," said Mrs. Orban, with sudden sternness; "we can't possibly be murdered in our beds when we are all out of them."

Even in the stress of the moment Eustace could not help being struck by the humour of the assertion, but he was in no mood for laughing.

Creeping to the window, he peered out, to find that it was no longer pitch dark; there was a sufficient glimmer of light to have enabled their uninvited guest to do all that the servants described.

By this time Becky was awake and howling. Her mother took her into her arms and soothed her gently.

"As to what we shall do," Mrs. Orban said in that same firm tone; "we must all stay here till daylight together. If there are thieves about the house, we can do nothing to check them. They will not hurt us if we don't interfere. There is nothing to be done but to behave as little like cowards as we can manage."

"But black-fellows do such—" began Kate.

"Hold your tongue, Kate," said the usually gentle Mrs. Orban, with sudden anger. "What good can it do to scare yourself and us by talking in such a way? We are in God's hands, don't forget that."

"Mother," Eustace said, "has father got his revolver away with him?"

"There are two in this room," Mrs. Orban replied. "Could you use one if necessary?""Oh, for mercy's sake don't let Master Eustace have a gun in his hands!" said Mary. "There's no saying which of us he might shoot in mistake if he began playing with one."

"Playing with one!" repeated Eustace scornfully; "why, father says my shooting is very good for my age."

Mrs. Orban took a revolver from a cupboard and gave it into the boy's hands.

"It is loaded," she said, and now there was the suspicion of a quiver in her voice; "but realize I am trusting you to be sensible. Don't shoot at random. Remember what Bob said last night. You are only to fire if terribly necessary. Now jump into Becky's bed, or you will be getting a chill and fever."

From beneath her own pillow she drew out a second revolver, examined it, and set it on a table within easy reach.

"Mother," said Eustace in surprise, "do you always sleep with a revolver under your pillow?"

"Only when your father is away," was the reply. "Now, Mary and Kate, get into my bed. I am going to sit in this cosy chair with Miss Becky. We will talk and keep the light burning; but it is my belief nothing more will happen to-night."

The maids obeyed, still looking terrified, and then Mrs. Orban seated herself, with Becky in her arms, near the table where the revolver lay.

Thus they prepared to face the remaining hour of darkness, powerless to do anything, utterly helpless, with nerves strung to the highest possible pitch, and hearts that beat wildly at every sound.

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