I wish I'd studied the big one at the Friary more.
How strange it all seems!" As he looked out, the place appeared very different.

He had seen it in the full sunshine; now, in the silence of the night, the trees glistened in the moonlight as if frosted, and the shadows cast stood out black, sharp, and as if solid.
And how still and awful it all seemed! Not a sound,--yes, there was: an impatient stamp from somewhere on the other side of the house.

He knew what that was, though: the horses were troubled by some night insect.
There was another sound, too, as he listened--and another--and another.
He was wrong: there was no awful silence; the night, as his ears grew accustomed to the sounds, was full of noises, which impressed him strangely or the reverse as he was able to make them out or they remained mysteries.
As he tried to pierce the distance, and his eyes wandered through the network of light among the trees on the slopes which ran up toward the mountains, his first thoughts were of blacks coming stealing along from shelter to shelter, till close enough to rush forward to the attack upon the station; and over and over again his excited imagination suggested dark figures creeping slowly from bush to bush or from tree to tree.
Once or twice he felt certain that he saw a tall figure standing out in the moonlight watching the house, but common sense soon suggested that a savage would not stand in so exposed a position, but would be in hiding.
Then, too, as minutes passed on and he was able to see that the objects did not move, he became convinced that they were stumps of trees.
That sound, though, was peculiar, and it was repeated.

It was a cough, and that was startling, just in the neighbourhood of the house.

But again he was able to explain it, for he had heard that cough in the fields of Kent, and the feeling of awe and dread passed off; for he knew it was the very human cough of a sheep.
But that was no sheep--that peculiar croaking cry that was heard now here, now there, as if the utterer were dashing in all directions.