The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling E. Lanier Read Free Book Online Page A

Cornish shore. Yet I felt, somehow, that far to the west something was stirring, out beyond human sight or the reach of human kind at all. I looked absently at my watch. It was eleven thirty. More time had gone on than I had realized, as I had stood there trying to see light where there was none to see, trying to read sense into a matter so strange that a mention of it in most places would have been grounds for accusations of insanity! It was well for us that no one at Avalon House had returned a second time for help from the police! This battle, for that was how I saw it, had to be fought by us alone, and our antagonist was a man with strange weapons at his command. If I were right, they might be weapons against which we would find ourselves powerless.
     
                  "I was about to close and bar the windows when I heard the sound in the night. Far off, to the south, I felt sure, echoing through the mist, came the high, shrill whinnying of a horse. Now, all the horses, the some half-dozen there were, belonging to the estate, were stabled and shut in tight at sundown. So too, with the sheep and cattle. And nothing lay to the south but miles of empty cliff and moor, with no habitations or roads. Save for the cliff cottage.
     
                  "And the castle, if that were truly ever a habitation. And anything that issued from the gloomy pile meant this house and all in it no good. Whatever was coming, and I knew in my bones that it was coming, was advancing from there. I knew this also, just as I knew that midnight was fast approaching.
     
                  "Then I heard it again, a high-pitched neighing, which got all through my bones, nearer than last time and coming fast . That nickering cry was wrong in some way I could not define. No normal horse would have made such a sound, nor indeed, could have done so.
     
                  "At the same time the mist began to swirl and part. It was a cloudy night, and the stars and moon were still hidden. But the ground mist was being shredded, and I heard, far off, the first faint moan of a wind, off in the uttermost west . And almost, so faint I could hardly catch the tremor of a scent in my nostrils, I seemed to smell the delicate perfume of apples. It seemed to give me hope, though why I did not know, and it also spurred me to action.
     
                  "I hurled myself out the door and raced down the corridor toward James' and Isobel's bedroom. They had to be roused at once.
     
                  "The door was opening as I arrived, and James stood there, fully clothed, with his wife behind him. Like myself, they had not undressed, but on his feet he now wore boots instead of the evening slippers he had worn with his dinner clothes.
     
                  "Her face was pale and frightened, though she was striving hard to conceal it . But his? The quiet, placid face of the country squire that I knew was utterly gone. He was a big man, and suddenly a most formidable one as well. His face was set like flint, in a brooding but awesome expression, one I had never seen before and I expect no one else had either. He looked steady as a rock and just as hard to move, but it was more than that . Above all, the impression was regal, in the old sense of the word, that of a great ruler and master of men, one who controlled destiny and was never its plaything.
     
                  "And as I stared transfixed at this new and mighty visage, there came from outside in the night the sound of the rising wind and over it the neighing of whatever it was out there masquerading as a horse!
     
                  "James turned and gently, without a word, pushed his wife back into the room. I caught one glimpse of her white face before the door closed. Then he turned back to me and stared hard at me for a second, as if in assessment .
     
                  " 'He has loosed the Hunter upon us,'