He turned to go, but at that instant, two figures, robed in white, dropped suddenly, as it seemed, from the very heavens, and I saw Mr. Tunstall, his face purple, struggling wildly in the coils of an almost invisible net. With a shriek, I turned to run; when our enemy, with a scream a hundred times more shrill than mine, collapsed and tumbled in a heap to the ground.
Chapter X
Retribution
The sound of that piercing scream, and the sight of Silas Tunstall dropping lifeless to the ground, gave me such a shock that I stopped dead where I was, unable to stir hand or foot. For a moment longer, I saw, with starting eyes, the two ghostly figures circling uncertainly around the prostrate form, in the increasing gloom; then they stopped, drew together, and I heard a hasty consultation in muffled tones, which I seemed to recognize.
“Biffkins!” called Dick’s frightened voice, at last; “come here, will you, and get these things off us!”
He was tearing frantically at his white mufflings, and the other—Tom, of course—was dancing a kind of furious war-dance in the effort to get free. And both of them were so excited that they were getting more entangled every instant. I don’t believe I had ever really thought them ghosts; still, it was a relief to know that they were familiar flesh and blood. I ran to them with a glad cry, in a moment their ghostly cerements lay about their feet, and they stood disclosed as two very tousled and very frightened boys.
“Do you suppose he’s dead?” asked Tom, in a husky whisper, as they bent over the fallen man, who lay in a limp heap, enveloped in a finely-meshed fishing-net.
“I don’t know,” answered Dick, paler than I had ever seen him. “But I shouldn’t think people’d die that easy. It’s not natural!”
Tom had whipped out his knife and was cutting away the net, quite forgetful of the fact that it was one of his most precious treasures.
“See if you can feel his pulse,” he said; and Dick gingerly applied his fingers to Mr. Tunstall’s wrist.
“No,” he gasped, after a moment; “not a sign! Oh! oh!” and he stared down at his victim with eyes fairly starting from his head.