“Say, if anything happens to-night, don’t wake me; I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Satterlee 2d’s troubled questioning elicited only sleepy and very unsatisfactory answers, and he had laid awake, hour after hour, or so it seemed, with ears strained for suspicious sounds. But none had come, and now—he yawned and turned over on the pillow—now he thought that he could go to sleep at last. He closed his eyes.
Then he opened them again. It seemed hours later, but was in fact scarcely five minutes. A bright, unhallowed light shone on his face. White-draped figures, silent and terrible, were about him.
“Ghosts!” thought Satterlee 2d.
But just as he had gathered sufficient breath for a satisfactory scream of terror, and just as some one had forced the corner of a pillow into his mouth, recollection of Brother Donald’s tales came to him and his fears subsided. With the supernatural aspect removed, the affair resolved into an unpleasant but not alarming adventure. It is idle to relate in detail the subsequent proceedings. Blindfolded and attired only in a bath-robe, hastily thrown over his nightshirt, he was conducted along corridors and down long flights of stairs, over strange, uneven expanses of frozen ground, skirting frightful abysses and facing dangers which, had he believed the asseverations of his captors, were the most awful ever mortal braved. Despite his incredulity he was glad when the end of the journey was reached. He was led stumbling down three very chilly stone steps and brought to a halt. The atmosphere was now slightly warmer, and this at least was something to be thankful for.
“Neophyte,” said a deep voice which sounded suspiciously like Brother Don’s, “you have passed unscathed through the Vale of Death. The first period of your initiation into the Order of the Grinning Skull is accomplished. We leave you now to dwell alone, until dawn gilds the peak of yonder mountain, among the Spirits of the Under World. Should you survive this, the most terrible ordeal of all, you will be one of us and will be admitted into the secrets and counsels of our Order. Farewell, perhaps forever!”
The hands that held him drew away, he heard the sounds of retreating footsteps, of a closing door and a creaking bolt. He remained motionless, his heart beating against his ribs. He wanted to cry out, to bring them back, but pride was still stronger than fear. The silence and damp odor of the place were uncanny. He thought of tombs and things, and shuddered. Then summoning back his waning courage, he tore the bandage from his eyes. Alas, he was still in complete darkness.
Satterlee 2d’s reading had taught him that the proper thing to do in such situations was to explore. So he put forth his hands and stepped gingerly forward. He brought up against a cold, reeking stone wall. He followed it, found a corner, turned at right angles, soon found another corner, and then worked back, at length coming in contact with the steps and a heavy door. All efforts to move the latter were vain. The floor was of wood and sounded hollow. The place had a clammy, unwholesome feeling, and now was beginning to strike him as decidedly wanting in warmth and comfort.
Suddenly his subsiding fear gave way before a rush of anger and he stamped a slippered foot. A nice trick to play on a fellow, he declared aloud; he’d tell Don what he thought of it in the morning, and he’d punch somebody’s head, see if he didn’t! In his wrath he stepped impetuously forward and gave a shriek of horror. He was up to his knees in icy water.
He clambered out and sat shivering on the planks, while the knowledge came to him that his prison was nothing else than the spring-house, which Don had exhibited to him that afternoon during a tour of sight-seeing. A narrow staging surrounded a large pool, he remembered; in his journey about the place he had kept in touch with the walls, and so had escaped a wetting, until his impetuous stride had plumped him into it. Cold, wet, angry and miserable, he crept to the farther corner of the house, to get as far as possible from the drafts that eddied in under the door, and placing his back against the wall and wrapping his wet garments about his knees, closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. He told himself that sleep was out of the question. But he was mistaken, for presently his head fell over on one side and he slumbered.