In a moment sleep had gone from his eyelids and he felt thoroughly awake.  Dashed if he wouldn’t throw on a few clothes and investigate.  The thing was so strange, so incredible!  He knew, well enough, from Borkins’s (the venerable butler) description earlier in the evening, that that part of the marshes was uninhabited.  Too low for stars the things were, for they hung on the edges of the marsh grass like tiny lanterns swung there by fairy hands.  In such a house, in such a room, with the shadow of that old four-poster winding its long fingers over him, Merriton began to perspire.  It was so devilish uncanny!  He was a brave enough man in human matters, but somehow these flames out there in the uninhabited stretch of the marshes were surely caused by no human agency.  Go and investigate he would, this very minute!  He drew in his head and brought the window down with a bang that went sounding through the gaunt, deserted old house.

Hastily he began to dress, and even as he struggled into a pair of tweed trousers came the sound of a soft knock upon his door, and he whipped round as though he had been shot, his nerves all a-jingle from the very atmosphere of the place.

“And who the devil are you?” he snapped out in an angry voice, all the more angry since he was conscious of a slight trembling of the knees.  The door swung open a trifle and the pale face of Borkins appeared around it.  His eyes were wide with fright, his mouth hung open.

“Sir Nigel, sir.  I ’eard a dreadful noise—­like a pistol shot it was, comin’ from this room!  Anythink the matter, sir?”

“Nothing, you ass!” broke out Merriton, fretfully, as the butler began to show other parts of his anatomy round the corner of the door.  “Come in, or go out, which ever you please.  But for the Lord’s sake, do one or the other!  There’s a beastly draught.  The noise you heard was that window which possibly hasn’t been opened for a century or two, groaning in pain at being forced into action again!  Can’t sleep in this beastly room—­haven’t closed my eyes yet—­and when I did get out of that Victorian atrocity over there and take to the sofa by the window, why, the first thing I saw were those flames flickering out across the horizon like signal-fires, or something!  I’ve been watching them for the past twenty minutes and they’ve got on my nerves.  I’m goin’ out to investigate.”

Borkins gave a little exclamation of alarm and put one trembling hand over his face.  Merriton suddenly registered the fact as being a symptom of the state of nerves which Merriton Towers was likely to reduce one.  Then Borkins shambled across the room and laid a timid hand upon Merriton’s arm.

“For Gawd’s sake sir—­don’t!” he murmured in a shaken voice.  “Those lights, sir—­if you knew the story!  If you values your life at any price at all don’t go out, sir, and investigate them. Don’t! You’re a dead man in the morning if you do.”