What was to prevent the same thing from happening again? Before the week was done other of the occupants of that house might find themselves walking in the gardens at night, down by the craggy shore of the lagoon! Nealman, others of the servants, any one of the guests--Edith herself--wouldn't circumstance, sooner or later, take them into the shadow of that curse? Who could tell but that the whole thing might be reënacted before this dreadful, sweltering night was done!
The occupants of the house wouldn't be able to sleep to-night. Some of them would go walking in the gardens, rambling further down the beguiling garden paths that would take them at last to that craggy margin of the inlet. Some of them might want a cool glimpse of the lagoon itself. Would we hear that sharp, agonized, fearful scream again streaming through the windows, gripping the heart and freezing the blood in the veins? Any hour--any moment--such a thing might occur.
But at that point I managed a barren and mirthless laugh. I was letting childlike fancies carry me away--and I had simply tried to laugh them to scorn. Surely I need not yield to such a mood as this, to let the sweltering heat and the silence change me into a superstitious savage. The thing to do was to move away from the window and direct my thought in other channels. Yet I knew, as I argued with myself, that I was curiously breathless and inwardly shaken. But these were nothing in comparison with the fact that I was some way _expectant_, too, with a dreadful expectancy beyond the power of naming.
Then my laugh was cut short. And I don't know what half-strangled utterance, what gagging expression of horror or regret or fulfilled dread took its place on my lips as a distinct scream for help, agonized and fearful, came suddenly, ripped through the darkness from the direction of the lagoon.
The most outstanding thing about that sound was its amazing loudness. It was hard to believe that a human voice could develop such penetration and volume. It had an explosive quality, bursting upon the eardrums with no warning whatsoever, and the man who had cried out had evidently given the full power of his lungs. It was probably true that the moist, hot atmosphere, hanging almost without motion, was a perfect medium for transmitting sound. Besides, my windows were open, facing the lagoon.