“Let us descend and go up to this figure.  It is a duty we owe to ourselves as much as to society.”

“Hold a moment,” said Mr. Marchdale, as he produced a pistol.  “I am an unerring shot, as you well know, Henry.  Before we move from this position we now occupy, allow me to try what virtue may be in a bullet to lay that figure low again.”

“He is rising!” exclaimed Henry.

Mr. Marchdale levelled the pistol—­he took a sure and deliberate aim, and then, just as the figure seemed to be struggling to its feet, he fired, and, with a sudden bound, it fell again.

“You have hit it,” said Henry.

“You have indeed,” exclaimed the doctor.  “I think we can go now.”

“Hush!” said Marchdale—­“Hush!  Does it not seem to you that, hit it as often as you will, the moonbeams will recover it?”

“Yes—­yes,” said Henry, “they will—­they will.”

“I can endure this no longer,” said Mr. Chillingworth, as he sprung from the wall.  “Follow me or not, as you please, I will seek the spot where this being lies.”

“Oh, be not rash,” cried Marchdale.  “See, it rises again, and its form looks gigantic.”

“I trust in Heaven and a righteous cause,” said the doctor, as he drew the sword he had spoken of from the stick, and threw away the scabbard.  “Come with me if you like, or I go alone.”

Henry at once jumped down from the wall, and then Marchdale followed him, saying,—­

“Come on; I will not shrink.”

They ran towards the piece of rising ground; but before they got to it, the form rose and made rapidly towards a little wood which was in the immediate neighbourhood of the hillock.

“It is conscious of being pursued,” cried the doctor.  “See how it glances back, and then increases its speed.”

“Fire upon it, Henry,” said Marchdale.

He did so; but either his shot did not take effect, or it was quite unheeded if it did, by the vampyre, which gained the wood before they could have a hope of getting sufficiently near it to effect, or endeavour to effect, a capture.

“I cannot follow it there,” said Marchdale.  “In open country I would have pursued it closely; but I cannot follow it into the intricacies of a wood.”

“Pursuit is useless there,” said Henry.  “It is enveloped in the deepest gloom.”

“I am not so unreasonable,” remarked Mr. Chillingworth, “as to wish you to follow into such a place as that.  I am confounded utterly by this affair.”

“And I,” said Marchdale.  “What on earth is to be done?”

“Nothing—­nothing!” exclaimed Henry, vehemently; “and yet I have, beneath the canopy of Heaven, declared that I will, so help me God! spare neither time nor trouble in the unravelling of this most fearful piece of business.  Did either of you remark the clothing which this spectral appearance wore?”

“They were antique clothes,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “such as might have been fashionable a hundred years ago, but not now.”