“There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot.  We ran toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the darkness and panic there was this danger also.  Then there came two of the game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house, carried by some of the men-servants.

“As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont.  He was standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand.  Then I saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead.  By him was the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands.  Yet there was nothing strange to be seen anywhere.

“We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor.  And then the rest of us, with four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched ’round the home park.  But we found nothing.

“When we got back we found that the doctor had been.  He had bound up Beaumont’s wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins straight to bed.  I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on guard outside of the girl’s door.  I asked him how he felt and then, so soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again ’round the bed.  They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside of the door.

“Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park.  It seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of the West Lodge.  It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:  ‘Hush!’ and came to a standstill.  He stopped and listened, but heard nothing for a little.  Then he caught it—­the sound of a horse, seemingly a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass.  He told the girl that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she was not deceived, of course.  In less than a minute they heard it quite close to them in the darkness and they started running.  Then Miss Hisgins caught her foot and fell.  She began to scream and that is what the butler heard.  As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right at him.  He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver right at the sounds.  He told us that he was sure he saw something that looked like an enormous horse’s head, right upon him in the light of the last flash of his pistol.  Immediately afterward he was struck a tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the butler came running up, shouting.  The rest, of course, we knew.