A most mysterious Sound in a most mysterious Place.—What is it?—General Panic.—The adventurous Explorers.—They are baffled.—Is Pat at the Bottom of it?—Bart takes his Life in his Hand, and goes alone to encounter the Mystery of the Garret.
THE boys had much to talk about that night. These had been eventful times. There was their excitement about the mineral rod, and their memorable experiment in the cellar; there was the unlading of the stones, and the bright prospect of more holidays; there was the sorrow of Corbet over his lost Antelope; and finally there was the prospect of the approaching trial, when Mr. Long would defend the cause of the innocent. Were not these matters sufficiently exciting to keep the boys awake till a late hour? Methinks they were.
Above all, that roar which had startled them at their midnight work never ceased to perplex them. Bruce, who was superstitious, still clung to his belief in its supernatural origin, but the other boys were one and all convinced that it was a hoax. But who had done it? Did the perpetrators of that hoax belong to the school? or did they belong to the village? or were they Gaspereau-gians? On these points they took sides, and had long arguments, which led to no conclusion in particular, but left them where they were.
One conclusion they did come to, however, and that was to keep their adventure a profound secret, and wait to see if the mystery would not be revealed.
In spite of their fatigue, they were so excited by the recent events, that they all remained in the Rawdons’ rooms till quite a late hour. The Academy was still, and everybody seemed to have gone to bed. Bart, Tom, and Phil were about to retire to their own rooms, when suddenly there occurred something which made every one of them start to his feet.
It was a long, wild, shrill cry, somewhere between a howl and a hoot, and it sounded in the attic above. Before they could recover from their first shock it sounded again and again.
Bruce’s face grew pale, and the others looked at one another with wide-open eyes.
The Rawdons’ rooms were in the third story, and immediately above them was the attic, which ran the whole length of the Academy, all unfinished except a little chamber at this end occupied by Pat. Pat’s room was immediately over Bart’s; and as the Academy was divided into separate compartments, each with its own entrance and stairways, it had no connection with this part. Midway in the unfinished attic rose the cupola, supported by a network of vast beams, a favorite place of resort for the boys, on account of the magnificence of the prospect which it commanded. On rainy days the attic formed a fine place for exercise, but at night its vast and gloomy extent served rather to repel visitors. Such was the place through which now sounded that discordant and horrid cry which had so startled the boys.
“There it is again!” said Bruce at last.
“Pooh!” said Bart—“that?—that is nothing to what it was up in the cellar.”
“Let’s go up and see what it is,” said Bruce, who again, as before, mastered the weakness of his superstitious fear by a supreme effort of courage.