An hour of candle-light had been bad, but an hour of pitch darkness or of mist wreaths would be many times worse.
"A wee tastie more, my lord ?" Mr.Gallosh suggested, in a voice whose vibrations he made an effort to conceal.
"Jost a vee," said his lordship, hardly more firmly.
With a dismal disregard for their suspense the minutes dragged infinitely slowly.

The flask was finished; the candle guttered and flickered ominously; the very shadows grew restless.
"There's a lot of secret doors and such like in this part of the house--let's hope there'll be nothing coming through one of them," said Mr.Gallosh in a breaking voice.
The Baron muttered an inaudible reply, and then with a start their shoulders bumped together.
"Damn it, what's yon!" whispered Mr.Gallosh.
"Ze pipes! Gallosh, how beastly he does play!" In point of fact the air seemed to consist of only one wailing note.
"Bong!"-- they heard the first stroke of midnight on the big clock on the Castle Tower; and so unfortunately had Count Bunker timed the candle that on the instant its flame expired.
"Vithdraw ze curtains!" gasped the Baron.
"I canna, my lord! Oh, I canna!" wailed Mr.Gallosh, breaking out into his broadest native Scotch.
This time the Baron made no movement, and in the palpitating silence the two sat through one long dark minute after another, till some ten of them had passed.
"I shall stand it no more!" muttered the Baron.

"Ve vill creep for ze door." "My lord, my lord! For maircy's sake gie's a hold of you!" stammered Mr.
Gallosh, falling on his hands and knees and feeling for the skirt of his lordship's kilt.
But their flight was arrested by a portent so remarkable that had there been only a single witness one would suppose it to be a figment of his imagination.

Fortunately, however, both the Baron and Mr.Gallosh can corroborate each detail.

About the middle, apparently, of the wall opposite, an oblong of light appeared in the thickest of the gloom.
"Mein Gott!" cried the Baron.
"It's filled wi' reek!" gasped Mr.Gallosh.
And indeed the space seemed filled with a slowly rising cloud of pungent blue smoke.