Explore "Mr. Marx's Secret" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Far away below me -- for Ravenor Castle stood on the highest point in the country -- a dull-red glow in the sky, and many twinkling lights stretched far and wide, marked the place where a great town lay. On my right hand was a smooth stretch of green turf, dotted all over with thickly growing spreading oak trees. On the left was a straggling plantation, bounded by a low greystone wall, which sloped down gradually to one of the bracken-covered, disused slate-quarries, with which the neighbourhood abounded.
Breathless, I stood still and looked searchingly around. Save in the immediate vicinity, the fast falling night had blotted out the view, reducing fields, woods, and rocks to one blurred chaotic mass. But where my eye could pierce the darkness I could see no sign of any moving object. By degrees my apprehension grew less strong. The cry, if it had not been wholly a trick of the imagination, must have been the cry of some animal. I drew a long breath of relief and moved forward again.