An owl, startled from the limb of a tree over my head, flew lazily into the upper air and across the thicket, disturbing other birds that set up a chattering protest.

Stealthily I crept from window to window, but the blinds were closed fast.

Finally I came to a door that seemed to open into the main part of the building.
Desperate under the strain to which my nerves had been subjected, I knocked loudly on its upper panels.

The sound echoed through the still house and the thickly wooded grounds around it.

"God help me!" I whispered; "will that echo never cease ?" It kept repeating itself from tree to tree, until I covered my ears to stop its weird reverberations.
Then I heard a low threatening sound, deep and resonant as the lower tones of a great organ, that gradually grew louder until its volume filled the air, and then died away, while its echoes went chasing each other among the trees.