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There only remained the lamp in the dining-room where the two men, the murderous host and the unconscious guest, still chatted over their cigars.

Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one-half of the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house.

Already the first thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted window.

The farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and the trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapour.

As we watched it the fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and rolled slowly into one dense bank on which the upper floor and the roof floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea.

Holmes struck his hand passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his impatience.

"If he isn't out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered. In half an hour we won't be able to see our hands in front of us."

"Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?"

"Yes, I think it would be as well."

So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we were half a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea, with the moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably on.

"We are going too far," said Holmes. "We dare not take the chance of his being overtaken before he can reach us. At all costs we must hold our ground where we are." He dropped on his knees and clapped his ear to the ground. "Thank God, I think that I hear him coming."

A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor.

Crouching among the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in front of us.

The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as through a curtain, there stepped the man whom we were awaiting.

He looked round him in surprise as he emerged into the clear, starlit night.

Then he came swiftly along the path, passed close to where we lay, and went on up the long slope behind us.

As he walked he glanced continually over either shoulder, like a man who is ill at ease.

"Hist!" cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol. "Look out! It's coming!"

There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the heart of that crawling bank.

The cloud was within fifty yards of where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror was about to break from the heart of it.

I was at Holmes's elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face.

It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.

But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement.

At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground.

I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog.

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