When, therefore, he retired towards
twelve o’clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a
satisfactory way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three
weeks, life at the Globe would be supportable under similar
conditions—“especially,” thought he, “if I go on improving my game.”

As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who
stopped and said:

“Beg your pardon, sir, but as I was a-brushing your coat just now there
was somethink fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of
drawers, sir, in your room, sir—a piece of a pipe or somethink of that,
sir. Thank you, sir. You’ll find it on your chest of drawers, sir—yes,
sir. Good night, sir.”

The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that
afternoon. It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it
over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was
shaped very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle; in fact it
was—yes, certainly it was—actually no more nor less than a whistle. He
put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or
earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a
knife. Tidy as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth on to
a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. The night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the
casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a
belated wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he
shut the window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at
Burnstow, and took his whistle to the light again. Why, surely there
were marks on it, and not merely marks, but letters! A very little
rubbing rendered the deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the
Professor had to confess, after some earnest thought, that the meaning
of it was as obscure to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. There were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle. The one read thus:

FLA FUR BIS FLE

The other:

QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT

“I ought to be able to make it out,” he thought; “but I suppose I am a
little rusty in my Latin. When I come to think of it, I don’t believe I
even know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem simple enough. It ought to mean, ‘Who is this who is coming?’ Well, the best way to
find out is evidently to whistle for him.”

He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at
the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it,
and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles
round. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many
scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly
for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh
wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure—how employed, he could
not tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been
broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so
sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of
a seabird’s wing somewhere outside the dark panes. The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help
trying it once more, this time more boldly. The note was little, if at
all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion—no picture
followed, as he had half hoped it might. ‘But what is this? Goodness! what force the wind can get up in a few minutes! What a tremendous
gust! There! I knew that window-fastening was no use! Ah! I thought
so—both candles out. It is enough to tear the room to pieces.’

The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count
twenty Parkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost
as if he were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the
pressure. It slackened all at once, and the window banged to and
latched itself. Now to relight the candles and see what damage, if any,
had been done. No, nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in
the casement. But the noise had evidently roused at least one member of
the household: the Colonel was to be heard stumping in his stockinged
feet on the floor above, and growling. Quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at once. On it went,
moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to a cry so
desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made
fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he
thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it. Whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the
researches in the preceptory that kept Parkins awake, he was not sure. Awake he remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as I am afraid I
often do myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all
manner of fatal disorders: he would lie counting the beats of his
heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every moment, and would
entertain grave suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc.—suspicions
which he was sure would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but
which until then refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious
comfort in the idea that someone else was in the same boat. A near
neighbour (in the darkness it was not easy to tell his direction) was
tossing and rustling in his bed, too. The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes and determined to give
sleep every chance. Here again over-excitement asserted itself in
another form—that of making pictures. _Experto crede_, pictures do come
to the closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to
his taste that he must open his eyes and disperse them. Parkins’s experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He
found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous. When he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once
more it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither
quicker nor slower than before. What he saw was this:

A long stretch of shore—shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short
intervals with black groynes running down to the water—a scene, in
fact, so like that of his afternoon’s walk that, in the absence of any
landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was
obscure, conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter
evening, and slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor
was visible. Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a
moment more, and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the
groynes, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came
the more obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly
frightened, though his face was not to be distinguished. He was,
moreover, almost at the end of his strength. On he came; each
successive obstacle seemed to cause him more difficulty than the last.