Although the mysterious Solomon Strange had expected to see the same, as Dungarvon had told him, he felt an inward shudder of horror and disgust, and had he not been playing a desperate and secret game, he would have turned away and cursed the robbers for their fiendishness in thus tampering with the remains of the dead. But such an act would have exposed him, and he resolved to go on with the play he had successfully begun.
The instant the light had flashed upon the ghastly figures before him, the one in the center arose to a standing posture, as though possessed of life. The grinning mouth was opened, and then these words seemed to fall from its lips, hollow and sepulchral:
“Bluford Brandon, are you aware of what you have done? do you know that you have entered the brotherhood of Mountain Men? If you do, beware!” and the figure raised its bony hand in which it clutched the glittering dagger as if to strike, then it fell at its side again. Then each of the other ghastly figures raised their glittering daggers, and as they dropped again, they seemed to repeat, in one voice:
“Beware!”
The standing figure then went on:
“Look at these glasses, Bluford Brandon; they contain the blood of those who once were Mountain Men—the blood of those who stand before you, those who were once as you now are; but we were traitors; we essayed to betray our brothers into the hands of the Government detectives; but, ah! the vengeance of the brotherhood fell upon us, and sapped our life-blood out, and left us what you see us—a ghastly warning to others! And now again I say, beware!”
“Beware!” chattered the other figures.
At this instant the room was wrapped in blinding darkness. Then Strange distinguished the light footfalls of hurrying feet. He heard the robbers removing the ghastly figures, and the ventriloquist that had put the words of life in their mouths, scrambling from under the table, where he had been concealed with others of the robbers, who, with wire connections, had raised the arms of the skeletons.
Presently all became silent, then the light flashed through the chamber again, and in the chairs where the skeleton had sat, Solomon Strange saw a number of robbers seated, while, where the figure stood, Duval Dungarvon was standing.
Instead of daggers, the robbers held in their hands the goblets of (not blood) red, sparkling wine, which as they lifted to their lips, Dungarvon said: