Somewhere across the water people were singing lovely Swiss songs, and all were watching the strange, fiery things in the sky above.
Mount Pilatus, which rose very high, close beside the lake, looked cold and ghostlike under the weird, blue lights.
"Would you like to hear a ghost story about Mount Pilatus, boys?" asked their father.
"Oh, of course we should! Please tell us a ghost story!" said the boys.
A fire balloon
"Well," began their father, "you know how Pilate, the Roman governor of Galilee, allowed Jesus to be killed. It is said that Pilate was afterward driven out of Galilee, and that he came to this part of the world and drowned himself in a lake near the top of that mountain. So the mountain was named Pilatus.
"For many hundreds of years the people about here believed that Pilate's ghost came out of the lake once a year and wandered over the mountain. To protect the people from the ghost, the government of Lucerne forbade any one to go near the lake.
"Once six bold men disobeyed this law, and they were put into prison. The people still believed that Pilate's ghost lived on the mountain, and they did not want to offend it.
"It was not until fifteen hundred years after Pilate was driven from Galilee that the government of Lucerne gave permission for four men to climb the mountain and to explore the lake. As the men did not find the ghost, they decided that at last it was quiet.