“Then what is it making the music?” demanded Jule. “If that isn’t some one playing the violin you may eat my head for a cabbage!”
They listened again. The sounds stopped directly, then there came a banging of doors and a rustle, as if some one in trailing clothes was being dragged through the hall. Then a shriek which appeared to come from directly under the feet of the boys cut the air, lifting into a terrifying yell at the end. The lads involuntarily started back down the path, but both stopped and faced the house again.
“I’m not going away without knowing more about it!” Alex. declared.
“That’s the way I look at it!” grinned Jule. “We can’t turn tail and run like a couple of cowards. I wish we had brought Captain Joe along with us!”
“Clay wanted him for company,” Alex. explained. “Joe looked like his heart was broken when we came off without him! I’ll bet he runs away and comes after us!”
Seeing that their automatic revolvers were in working order, the boys walked back up the broken walk, mounted the steps, and passed into the ancient hallway of the mansion. All was ruin and decay there. The floor was broken out in places, and there were marks of an axe on the casings of the door and on the narrow windows beside it.
The stairway leading to the rooms above was broken, too, some of the steps being gone entirely. The lads stopped at the foot of the steps for an instant to gaze upward and then turned into a lofty room on the left. This must have been the parlor, and the apartment beyond it must have been the library.
The furniture, which had once been valuable, was broken into bits, and a charred spot on the floor showed where a fire had been kindled. The rooms on that floor were all desolate and dismantled, and the boys soon turned their attention to those above the ruined staircase.
Scarcely had they gained the head of the stairs when the music began again. It seemed to come down the wide hallway which ran nearly through the house parallel with the front.
“We’re getting nearer to the band!” Jule whispered.