Nothing so nutritious showed itself this time, however, and I returned to the camp to find Eliza practically twittering with terror. I am afraid that I felt slightly impatient and I spoke sharply to her.

“Eliza, control yourself! Stop whimpering at me! Whatever is the matter with you?”

“Oh, Miss Davenport, I heard them, miss! There they were, the two of them, their poor little ghosts, drifting through the trees, miss!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The two little girls, miss!”

“Lucy and Charlotte? Are you sure?”

“They weren’t alive, miss! They were spirits! Phantoms! Driven through the night, unable to rest anywhere, because of a curse that follows them to the ends of the earth! And, miss—”

“What is it, girl?”

“One of them was carrying her head in her arms, miss….”

“What?”

“She’d been beheaded—oh, it was terrifying, Miss Davenport—a little girl carrying her own head—her cloak was all pulled up high around her poor bare neck—I couldn’t see no head on her shoulders at all, but there it was, in her arms—oh, I shall never forget it, not till my dying day….”

I thought for a moment that the girl had lost her reason. Ghosts carrying their own heads, indeed! But there had to be some kind of natural explanation. I questioned Eliza more closely.

From her answers it appeared that someone, whether or not the girls themselves, had gone past the woodcutter’s hut only five minutes before; that there were two of them; and that they might easily have been the girls, if they were not so in fact. Obviously, we would have to follow them and find out. I took my pistols—both of them—and set out. Eliza, trembling, came with me.

But, of course, we found no trace of them. Snow in plenty; darkness in abundance; an excess of undergrowth; but no girls. Disappointed, but hardly surprised, I led the way back to our camp—only to hear voices there and to see a villainous-looking figure brandishing a flaming branch, intent (as I thought) upon setting fire to all our possessions. Which was foolish of me, I admit. I shot him; or, rather, shot the branch out of his hand, and then took my other pistol, ready to issue a stern warning.

And then Eliza took charge.

“Maxie!” she cried, and threw herself forward at the intruders.

“Eliza!” came the joyful reply, in the voice of the man Grindoff, and in a moment they were embracing.

“It’s all right, Miss Davenport!” called Eliza, breathlessly. “It’s Max!”

“So I see,” I answered. “Grindoff, my man, I apologize for shooting at you. It was foolish of me. You are not hurt, are you?”

“Startled, ma’am, but not hurt,” he said, as I stepped into the camp.