Algernon Blackwood

“ By the time he had found his overcoat and slipped round the house with her from the back door, the lantern, they saw, was already swinging close to the pine-wood. The night was still as ice, bitterly cold. Breathlessly they ran, following the tracks. Halfway his steps diverged, and were plainly visible in the virgin snow by themselves. They heard the whispering of the branches ahead of them, for pines cry even when no airs stir. “Follow me close,” said the old man sternly. The lantern, he already saw, lay upon the ground unattended; no human figure was anywhere visible. ”

“ We followed his tracks, which came to an end beside the lantern, the last step being a stride almost impossible for a man to have made. All around the snow was unbroken by a single mark but the man himself had vanished. Then we heard him calling for help⁠—above, behind, beyond us; from all directions at once, yet from none, came the sound of his voice; but though we called back he made no answer, and gradually his cries grew fainter and fainter, as if going into tremendous distance, and at last died away altogether. ”

“ And a moment later both figures were kneeling in the snow, praying, so to speak, their very heart’s life out⁠ ⁠...
The search may be imagined⁠—the steps taken by police, friends, newspapers, by the whole country in fact⁠ ⁠... But the most curious part of this queer “Higher Space” adventure is the end of it⁠—at least, the “end” so far as at present known. For after three weeks, when the winds of March were a-roar about the land, there crept over the fields towards the house the small dark figure of a man. ”