“It is Snooks,” Winnie exclaimed. “Just like her to come spying and speculating here to see what we are up to.”
“If that’s so, Miss Noakes has bigger feet than I ever gave her credit for,” Polo replied; “and she wears boots too.”
“Then those cadets have actually dared!” Winnie exclaimed, and Milly gave a little shriek. “Oh, that horrid Stacey Fitz Simmons!”
“Hush!” commanded Winnie. “We will make them wish they had never been born. Oh, I will manage these gay young gentlemen. Go back to your post, Polo. Keep the door locked, and be sure that no one leaves except in the regular order and conducted by her guide.”
A few moments later and the curtains were drawn at the close of the final act, tremendous applause testifying the approval of the audience. Winnie now stepped to the front of the curtain and announced that the ghosts must now each submit once more to be blindfolded and “to be led through the grewsome and labyrinthine catacombs to the Feast of the Ghouls.”
Little Breeze and Milly first led away two of the girls, and then Winnie stepped boldly up to the taller of the two suspected intruders and offered to blindfold him. The rogue could only follow the example of those who had preceded him, and submit with a good grace, as any other course would have led to detection. I followed with the shorter impostor, tying the handkerchief very tight, and detecting the odor of cigarettes as I did so. Winnie beckoned to me to follow, and conducted her victim to the root cellar, a dark, unwholesome little room, with a small orated window—a veritable dungeon. We led our prisoners into the centre of this gloomy cell, and, making them kneel on the cemented floor, bade them remain there until the coming of the ghouls. Hastening from the place, we chained and padlocked the door securely.
“Now that we have secured our prisoners, what do you propose to do with them?” I asked of Winnie.
“Call the Amen Corner together after supper to deliberate on their fate. In the mean time they are very well off where they are. I fancy they will hardly care to repeat this experiment.”
We returned to the laundry and continued the ceremony of leading our guests to the supper. When all had been led in, the bandages were removed from their eyes, and they found themselves before tables provided with plates, knives, and forks, but no edibles. Little Breeze, beating upon a tin pan with a great beef bone, called the meeting to order, and, indicating the preserve closet, announced that the ghouls would now search the neighboring tombs for their prey. At the same time the door of the preserve closet was thrown open, and Trude Middleton set the example by capturing a can of peaches. The girls fancied that they were robbing the pantry, and this gave zest to the performance to a few of the more reckless ones, but the rest held back, and Winnie found it necessary to circulate the whisper that even this apparently high-handed proceeding was authorized by Madame, before the raid became general. A very heterogeneous repast, consisting of pickles, crackers, dried apples, canned fruit, prunes, dried beef, and lemonade hastily mixed in a great earthen bowl, was now participated in by the hilarious ghouls. One bowl of the lemonade was ruined, after the lemons and sugar were mingled, by a ludicrous mistake. Milly, mistaking it for water, filled the bowl from a jar of liquid bluing. The error was discovered when we began filling some empty jelly tumblers with the strange blue mixture, and, fortunately, no one was poisoned by drinking the ghoulish liquor.
Under cover of the confusion I managed to tell Adelaide of the captives in the cellar, and later in the evening, while the ghosts were engaged in a Virginia Reel in the long underground passage leading from the furnace room to the other end of the school building, met in solemn conclave to deliberate on their fate. Adelaide was for delivering the keys to Madame with a statement of the case. Cynthia argued strongly in favor of releasing the young men, sending them home, and saying nothing about it. While we were in the midst of the argument, a far away cry was heard. It was from Polo, who had been left to guard the door of the root cellar. We rushed to the spot, only to find that the rusty staple had yielded to the efforts of two athletic boys, one of whom was heavy of weight as well as strong of muscle, and had been forced out of the wall, and our captives had escaped. Polo had followed them in their flight, and returned breathless to report that they had made a dash, not for the outside door, but straight up the great staircase to the studio and had then descended the turret staircase, showing clearly that they had made their entrance in the same way.