Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/334

 up even at this hour. There must be some villainy afloat!"

When we got up a little farther he called to me again in the same way.

"The nearest point of the bog is here; let us look at it." We diverged to the left, and in a few minutes were down at the edge of the bog.

It seemed to us to be different from what it had been. It was raised considerably above its normal height, and seemed quivering all over in a very strange way. Dick said to me very gravely:—

"We are just in time. There's something going to happen here."

"Let us hurry to Joyce's," I said, "and see if all is safe there."

"We should warn them first at Murdock's," he said. "There may not be a moment to lose." We hurried back to the boreen and ran on to Murdock's, opened the gate, and ran up the path. We knocked at the door, but there was no answer. We knocked more loudly still, but there came no reply.

"We had better make certain," said Dick, and I could hear him more easily now, for we were in the shelter of the porch. We opened the door, which was only on the latch, and went in. In the kitchen a candle was burning, and the fire on the hearth was blazing, so that it could not have been long since the inmates had left. Dick wrote a line of warning in his pocket-book, tore out the leaf, and placed it on the table where it could