"Why, Buddy," she reassured, "that's only a pretty, harmless little owl."
"But hits a scrutch-owl," frowned the boy, shrinking away.
"Oh, come on, Buddy!—I really believe you are afraid of ghosts," returned Belle-Ann, taking him protectingly by the hand.
Re-enforced by the girl's utter absence of fear, Lem pushed the door open, and stepping within led the way, lantern in hand. Upon their approach to the altar, the bull-bats flapped their bony wings amongst the rafters. There was in the fetid gloom of the place a permeating musk of things seemingly not of this earth. Lem hung up the lantern on the hook at the end of the dingy rope suspended near the pulpit. The rope, which great spiders had converted into a swing, now felt soft and snaky beneath his touch. He turned the light up as high as he could without smoking and faced Belle-Ann. He saw at a glance that a measure of her temerity had vanished.
A smothered exclamation fell from Lem's lips. He pointed through the buff halo cast from the lantern. There against the south wall of the room some of the benches could be dimly discerned overturned,—others twisted and broken and scattered in a mass of wreckage—while one balanced perilously on the casement as though a hand had sought to take it out through the window.
"Who yo' 'low done thet?" inquired Buddy in a tremulous whisper, clinging timorously to Belle-Ann's skirts.
"I don't 'low any human bein' done hit," predicted Lem in faint undertones that faltered with a creeping, choking apprehension. A queer brain-numbing apathy settled upon them that seemed to deprive them suddenly of the use of their tongues and limbs.
"Oh, nonsense!" discredited Belle-Ann bravely. "Some mean boys perhaps."
Disbelieving, the brothers stood rigid and shook their now pale faces in denial. Belle-Ann did not fear ghosts, but there was undeniably some strange mortal influence circulating the eery atmosphere of this place like the proximity of some menacing presence close at hand, but unseen. She fought hard to repel this unknown fear that was stealing upon her, but, despite her valiant struggle, it was fast seizing upon her nerves and permeating her whole being with singular insistency.
With an effort she gathered herself together.