This time it was more than dreaming. It was real. I got there. I remembered. That’s what I meant. And after I woke up the thing still went on. The man seemed still in the room beside the bed, calling me to get up and go with him——’

‘Man! What man?’ The tutor leant upon the back of a chair to steady himself. The wind just then went past the open windows with a singing rush.

‘The dark man who passed us in the village, and who pointed to the fires on the heights. He came with the wind, you remember. He pulled my coat.’

The boy stood up as he said it. He came across the naked boarding, his step light and dancing. ‘Fire that heats but does not burn, and wind that blows the heart alight, or something—I forget now exactly. You heard it too.’ He whispered the words with excitement, raising his arms and knees as in the opening movements of a dance.

Hendricks kept his own excitement down, but with a distinctly conscious effort.

‘I heard nothing of the kind,’ he said calmly. ‘I was only thinking of getting home dry. You say,’ he asked with decision, ‘that you heard those words?’

Lord Ernie stood back a little. It was not that he wished to conceal, but that he felt uncertain how to express himself. ‘In the street,’ he said, ‘I heard nothing; the words rose up in my own head, as it were. But in the dream, and afterwards too, when I was wide awake, I heard them out loud, clearly: Fire that heats but does not burn, and wind that blows the heart to flame—that’s how it was.’

‘In French, Bindy? You heard it in French?’

‘Oh, it was no language at all. The eyes said it—both times.’ He spoke as naturally as though it was the Durbah he described again. Only this new aggressive certainty was in his voice and manner. ‘Mr. Hendricks,’ he went on eagerly, ‘you understand what I mean, don’t you? When certain people look at one, words start up in the mind as though one heard them spoken. I heard the words in my head, I suppose; only they seemed so familiar, as though I’d known them before—always——’

‘Of course, Bindy, I understand. But this man—tell me—did he stay on after you woke up? And how did he go?’ He looked round at the barely furnished room for hiding-places. ‘It was really the dream you carried on after waking, wasn’t it?’

Then Bindy laughed, but inwardly, as to himself. There was the faintest possible hint of derision in his voice. ‘No doubt,’ he said; ‘only it was one of my big, real dreams. And how he went I can’t explain at all, for I didn’t see. You knocked at the door; I turned, and found myself standing in the room, dressed to go out. There was a rush of wind outside the window—and when I looked he was no longer there.