"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
forces that I was unable to comprehend. "The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
which I had screwed into the ceiling. "I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch. "I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere. "The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
nearness of something monstrous and repugnant. "There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell. "I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope. There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
do the same. "As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights. "From the detective there came a sudden shout:--

"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
instantly burst into loud roars of laughter. "The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose. "'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
dancing all over the place. "'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
trying to speak plainly. "Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage. The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
ran with it upstairs and so into the open air. "Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
been so much water. "As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
couple of weeks earlier. "He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
unlatched, in the process of opening the panel. "The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
beach beyond the church.