There seemed, however, to be no merriment in the strange, wild peals of laughter which reached their ears. Agitated and apprehensive, one fellow seized the shoulder of the chap who stood at the door.
“Open up, Bark,” he urged—“open up! Turn the lights on, somebody. Let’s see what’s the matter in there.”
As the lights were turned on the door swung open, and those practical jokers, crowding forward, beheld a spectacle that made more than one recoil. In some manner Rodney Grant had succeeded in freeing his hands from the rope. His coat had been torn off and flung aside. His shirt was ripped open at the throat, and one sleeve had been torn into shreds. He was crouching on one knee directly in front of the dangling skeleton, and the flood of light from the open door fell on a face so wild and terrible that the disguised boys shuddered at beholding it. He was white as a sheet; his eyes glared, and a frothing foam covered his lips.
“Avaunt!” he shrieked. “Quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; thou hast no speculation in those eyes which thou dost glare with!”
“Great mercy!” gurgled one of the group at the door. “He’s gone mad—stark, staring mad!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE ONE WHO LAUGHED LAST.
While they stood paralyzed Rodney Grant suddenly leaped to his feet, still jabbering and laughing wildly, seized the skeleton, tore it from the ropes by which it was suspended, and charged them with the grisly thing in his grasp. Right and left they scattered, terrified beyond words, some of them actually uttering screams of fear. Their one great desire seemed to be to get out of the way and give Grant plenty of room.
Having driven them in this manner, the victim of the joke hurled the skeleton aside, rushed across the open floor of the gymnasium, caught up a chair and dashed it through a window, carrying away sash and glass. A single step he retreated, and then, with a forward bound and a yell, he followed the chair through the broken window, disappearing into the darkness outside. The appalled boys heard the sound of running feet swiftly die out in the distance.