Alonzo and Edgar were armed with pistols and side arms, and posted themselves with the five men in the chamber, taking care that the lights should not shine against the window shutters, so that nothing could be discovered from without. Things thus arranged, they observed almost an implicit silence, no one being allowed to speak, except in a low whisper.
For a long time no sound was heard except the hollow roar of the winds in the neighbouring forest, their whistling around the angles of the mansion, or the hoarse murmers of the distant surge. The night was dark, and only illuminated by the feeble twinkling of half clouded stars.
They had watched until about midnight, when they were alarmed by noises in the rooms below, among which they could distinguish footsteps and human voices. Alonzo and Edgar, then taking each a pistol in one hand, and a drawn sword in the other, ordered their men to follow them, prepared for action. Coming to the head of the stairs, they saw a brilliant light streaming into the hall; they therefore concluded to take no candles, and to prevent discovery they took off their shoes. When they came into the hall opposite the door of the room from whence the light and noises proceeded, they discovered ten men genteelly dressed, sitting around a table, on which was placed a considerable quantity of gold and silver coin, a number of glasses and several decanters of wine. Alonzo and his party stood a few minutes, listening to the following discourse, which took place among this ghostly gentry.
“Well, boys, we have made a fine haul this trip.”——“Yes, but poor Bob, though, was plump’d over by the d——d skulkers!”——“Aye, and had we not tugged bravely at the oars, they would have hook’d us.”——“Rascally cow-boys detained us too long.”——“Well, well, never mind it; let us knock around the wine, and then divide the spoil.”
At this moment, Alonzo and Edgar, followed by the five men, rushed into the room, crying. “Surrender, or you are all dead men!” In an instant the room was involved in pitchy darkness; a loud crash was heard, then a scampering about the floor, and a noise as if several doors shut to, with violence. They however gave the alarm to the men without, by loudly shouting “Look out;” and immediately the discharge of several guns was heard around the mansion. One of the men flew up stairs and brought a light; but, to their utter amazement, no person was to be discovered in the room except their own party. The table, with its apparatus, and the chairs on which these now invisible beings had sat, had all disappeared, not a single trace of them being left.
While they stood petrified with astonishment, the men from without called for admittance. The door being unlocked, they led in a stranger wounded, whom they immediately discovered to be one of those they had seen at the table.
The men who had been stationed around the mansion informed, that some time before the alarm was made, they saw a number of persons crossing the yard from the western part of the enclosure, towards the house; that immediately after the shout was given, they discovered several people running back in the same direction: they hailed them, which being disregarded, they fired upon them, one of whom they brought down, which was the wounded man they had brought in. The others, though they pursued them, got off.
The prisoner’s wound was not dangerous, the ball had shattered his arm, and glanced upon his breast. They dressed his wound as well as they could, and then requested him to unfold the circumstances of the suspicious appearance in which he was involved.
“First promise me, on your honour, said the stranger, that you will use your influence to prevent my being punished or imprisoned.”
This they readily agreed to, on condition that he would conceal nothing from them—and he gave them the following relation: