In the gathering gloom within he had a momentary impression of a stealing greyish shape--a shape which vanished from his vision as he looked.
He rose to his feet, his mind groping blindly for some tangible explanation of this spectral thing, but finding none.

A ghost?
He shook off that feeling roughly.

God knows, that house might well be haunted, but not by a ghost that could laugh, though there was no merriment in that ghastly cackle.

The reality of the thing, whatever it was, could not be worse than the sound.

Had he really seen anything, after all?
Was there some trap about it, some danger to himself?
He would have to risk that.
The distant sight of a human figure far away on the wide space of the moors, clambering over the granite slabs of a stile, turned his thoughts to a more perceptible danger.