Near his feet was an ashen glow that gave no light.

His first perplexity gave way to dismay at finding no Amanda by his side.  “Amanda!” he cried. . . .

Her voice floated down through a chink in the floor above.  “What can it be, Cheetah?”

Then:  “It’s coming nearer.”

The screaming continued, heart-rending, eviscerating shrieks.  Benham, still confused, lit a match.  All the men about him were stirring or sitting up and listening, their faces showing distorted and ugly in the flicker of his light.  “Che E?” he tried.  No one answered.  Then one by one they stood up and went softly to the ladder that led to the stable-room below.  Benham struck a second match and a third.

“Giorgio!” he called.

The cavasse made an arresting gesture and followed discreetly and noiselessly after the others, leaving Benham alone in the dark.

Benham heard their shuffling patter, one after the other, down the ladder, the sounds of a door being unbarred softly, and then no other sound but that incessant shrieking in the darkness.

Had they gone out?  Were they standing at the door looking out into the night and listening?

Amanda had found the chink and her voice sounded nearer.

“It’s a woman,” she said.

The shrieking came nearer and nearer, long, repeated, throat-tearing shrieks.  Far off there was a great clamour of dogs.  And there was another sound, a whisper—?

“Rain!”

The shrieks seemed to turn into a side street and receded.  The tension of listening relaxed.  Men’s voices sounded below in question and answer.  Dogs close at hand barked shortly and then stopped enquiringly.

Benham seemed to himself to be sitting alone for an interminable time.  He lit another match and consulted his watch.  It was four o’clock and nearly dawn. . . .

Then slowly and stumbling up the ladder the men began to return to Benham’s room.

“Ask them what it is,” urged Amanda.

But for a time not even Giorgio would understand Benham’s questions.  There seemed to be a doubt whether he ought to know.  The shrieking approached again and then receded.  Giorgio came and stood, a vague thoughtful figure, by the embers of the fire.  Explanation dropped from him reluctantly.  It was nothing.  Some one had been killed:  that was all.  It was a vendetta.  A man had been missing overnight, and this morning his brother who had been prowling and searching with some dogs had found him, or rather his head.  It was on this side of the ravine, thrown over from the other bank on which the body sprawled stiffly, wet through, and now growing visible in the gathering daylight.  Yes—­the voice was the man’s wife.  It was raining hard. . . .  There would be shrieking for nine days.  Yes, nine days.  Confirmation with the fingers when Benham still fought against the facts.  Her friends and relatives would come