We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked that my dog had not followed us when we had left it.  He was thrusting himself close to the fire, and trembling.  I was impatient to examine the letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring; took them out, placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and then occupied himself in soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.

The letters were short—­they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-five years ago.  They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a husband to some young wife.  Not only the terms of expression, but a distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been a seafarer.  The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly educated, but still the language itself was forcible.  In the expressions of endearment there was a kind of rough wild love; but here and there were dark and unintelligible hints at some secret not of love—­some secret that seemed of crime.  “We ought to love each other,” was one of the sentences I remember, “for how every one else would execrate us if all was known.”  Again:  “Don’t let any one be in the same room with you at night—­you talk in your sleep.”  And again:  “What’s done can’t be undone; and I tell you there’s nothing against us unless the dead could come to life.”  Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a female’s), “They do!” At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand had written these words:  “Lost at sea the 4th of June, the same day as ——.”

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth.  I roused myself—­laid the letters on the table—­stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering—­and opened my volume of Macaulay.  I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven.  I then threw myself dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep himself awake.  I bade him leave open the door between the two rooms.  Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head.  I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay.  Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearthrug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog.  In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught.  I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have got open; but no—­it was closed.  I then turned my glance to my left, and saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind.  At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table—­softly, softly—­no visible hand—­it was gone.  I sprang up, seizing the revolver with the one hand, the dagger with other:  I was not willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch.  Thus armed, I looked round the floor—­no sign of the watch.  Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, “Is that you, sir?”