They were all getting exceedingly weary of the whole business; indeed,
it was getting on all their nerves in a way which threatened
consequences, when, mercifully, the end came--suddenly, not at all as
they had looked for it, quite outside all their expectation.
It was one of the shrouded nights. The Doctor and the Senechal, flat in
the heather, saw the lantern issue from the Sark cutting and come
joggling towards them. They heard a snort of surprise behind them, but
gave it no special heed. The Senechal grinned briefly at remembrance of
his fright when the beast snuffled down his neck that other night.
Then, this is what happened.
Gard--his lantern in his left hand, and the Senechal's father's
"dunderbush" in his right--his eyes pinching spooks out of every inch of
the black wall about him, and every string at its tightest--had reached
the crumbly bit of path near the Little Sark side, when, like a clap of
thunder out of a blue sky, the black silence of the cutting vomited
uproar--the wild clang and beat of what sounded, in that hollow space,
like the trampling of a thousand dancing hoofs--shrill neighings and
whinnyings and screamings, all blended into an indescribable and
blood-curdling clamour that gashed the night like an outrage.
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