“Good heavens!” gasped a pale-faced student. “We gave him a real knife instead of the wooden one! How did it happen?”
“Somebody must have placed a real knife in the place of the wooden one,” said another. “You know the wooden knife was made to look perfectly natural.”
“This is horrible!” hoarsely groaned a third. “Who was inside the monster?”
“Frank Merriwell!”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“He is, if he got the length of this knife.”
Jack Ready stood still, drops of perspiration starting out on his forehead.
“Rats!” he muttered. “It’s a part of the joke.”
Then he pushed his way into the other room, where a lot of breathless students were gathered about one who was stretched on the floor. The framework of the “monster” had been partly stripped off, and Frank Merriwell, in his shirt-sleeves, lay in the midst of the group, his face ghastly pale.
But what filled Jack Ready with horror was the sight of a great crimson stain on the bosom of Merriwell’s shirt, and the crimson seemed to be spreading around a slit in the bosom of the garment!