"Where did the sound come from?"
Without a word, Merriwell pointed downward toward
the grave. There was a look on his face that made his companion shiver.
Bruce swallowed down the lump in his throat.
"I am a fool!" he thought. "I am ashamed of such childish fears!"
Then he forced himself to distinctly ask:
"What kind of a sound did you think you heard?"
"A rustle—a movement. It was as if the body down there had turned restlessly in its bed of earth!"
Never did Bruce forget how those words sounded in the deep silence of the black woods. Never did he forget the sensation of unutterable horror that they brought with a shock to his soul. He stared at Frank, his jaw dropping, while awful thoughts ran riot in his brain.
They had heard the whispered words, "dead and buried," which at first seemed to float in the air, and then appeared to come up from the grave before them. Browning fancied the dead lips down there uttering those words. He fancied the murdered man turning restlessly in his cold, dark bed—turning, twisting, unable to rest till he had been avenged.