Lair of the White Worm

hollowed on the top, he bent low and placed his forehead on the ground.
This was the only place where he showed distinct reverence.  At the
Castle, though he spoke of much death, he showed no sign of respect.

There was evidently something about Diana's Grove which both interested
and baffled him.  Before leaving, he moved all over the place
unsatisfied, and in one spot, close to the edge of the Brow, where there
was a deep hollow, he appeared to be afraid.  After returning several
times to this place, he suddenly turned and ran in a panic of fear to the
higher ground, crossing as he did so the outcropping rock.  Then he
seemed to breathe more freely, and recovered some of his jaunty
impudence.

All this seemed to satisfy Adam's expectations.  He went back to Lesser
Hill with a serene and settled calm upon him.  Sir Nathaniel followed him
into his study.

"By the way, I forgot to ask you details about one thing.  When that
extraordinary staring episode of Mr. Caswall went on, how did Lilla take
it--how did she bear herself?"

"She looked frightened, and trembled just as I have seen a pigeon with a
hawk, or a bird with a serpent."

"Thanks.  It is just as I expected.  There have been circumstances in the
Caswall family which lead one to believe that they have had from the
earliest times some extraordinary mesmeric or hypnotic faculty.  Indeed,
a skilled eye could read so much in their physiognomy.  That shot of
yours, whether by instinct or intention, of the hawk and the pigeon was
peculiarly apposite.  I think we may settle on that as a fixed trait to
be accepted throughout our investigation."

When dusk had fallen, Adam took the new mongoose--not the one from
Nepaul--and, carrying the box slung over his shoulder, strolled towards
Diana's Grove.  Close to the gateway he met Lady Arabella, clad as usual
in tightly fitting white, which showed off her slim figure.

To his intense astonishment the mongoose allowed her to pet him, take him
up in her arms and fondle him.  As she was going in his direction, they
walked on together.

Round the roadway between the entrances of Diana's Grove and Lesser Hill
were many trees, with not much foliage except at the top.  In the dusk
this place was shadowy, and the view was hampered by the clustering
trunks.  In the uncertain, tremulous light which fell through the tree-
tops, it was hard to distinguish anything clearly, and at last, somehow,
he lost sight of her altogether, and turned back on his track to find
her.  Presently he came across her close to her own gate.  She was
leaning over the paling of split oak branches which formed the paling of
the avenue.  He could not see the mongoose, so he asked her where it had
gone.

"He slipt out of my arms while I was petting him," she answered, "and
disappeared under the hedges."

They found him at a place where the avenue widened so as to let carriages
pass each other.  The little creature seemed quite changed.  He had been
ebulliently active; now he was dull and spiritless--seemed to be dazed.
He allowed himself to be lifted by either of the pair; but when he was
alone with Lady Arabella he kept looking round him in a strange way, as
though trying to escape.  When they had come out on the roadway Adam held
the mongoose tight to him, and, lifting his hat to his companion, moved
quickly towards Lesser Hill; he and Lady Arabella lost sight of each
other in the thickening gloom.

When Adam got home, he put the mongoose in his box, and locked the door
of the room.  The other mongoose--the one from Nepaul--was safely locked
in his own box, but he lay quiet and did not stir.  When he got to his
study Sir Nathaniel came in, shutting the door behind him.

"I have come," he said, "while we have an opportunity of being alone, to
tell you something of the Caswall family which I think will interest you.
There is, or used to be, a belief in this part of the world that the
Caswall family had some strange power of making the wills of other
persons subservient to their own.  There are many allusions to the
subject in memoirs and other unimportant works, but I only know of one
where the subject is spoken of definitely.  It is _Mercia and its
Worthies_, written by Ezra Toms more than a hundred years ago.  The
author goes into the question of the close association of the then Edgar
Caswall with Mesmer in Paris.  He speaks of Caswall being a pupil and the
fellow worker of Mesmer, and states that though, when the latter left
France, he took away with him a vast quantity of philosophical and
electric instruments, he was never known to use them again.  He once made
it known to a friend that he had given them to his old pupil.  The term
he used was odd, for it was 'bequeathed,' but no such bequest of Mesmer
was ever made known.  At any rate the instruments were missing, and never
turned up."

A servant came into the room to tell Adam that there was some strange
noise coming from the locked room into which he had gone when he came in.
He hurried off to the place at once, Sir Nathaniel going with him.  Having
locked the door behind them, Adam opened the packing-case where the boxes
of the two mongooses were locked up.  There was no sound from one of
them, but from the other a queer restless struggling.  Having opened both
boxes, he found that the noise was from the Nepaul animal, which,
however, became quiet at once.  In the other box the new mongoose lay
dead, with every appearance of having been strangled!