This last remark was caused by a glance he had taken in the direction of the dungeon. A faint glimmer of light appeared in a crack at the top of the old, fast-falling door. And Mark arose and crept swiftly across the room.
We must go inside now and see what was going on there, for that light was destined to bring a new and startling development for the yearlings; it was what Texas had called “the other scheme.”
To picture the horror of the abandoned four during the few moments that had elapsed is beyond our effort. Suffice it to say, that they were still shrieking, still despairing and yet daring to hope. And then came the new scheme.
The silence and blackness had both been unbroken except by them; but suddenly came a faint, spluttering, crackling sound. And an instant later a faint, white light shone about the narrow cell. It came from right in front of the horrified four, seeming to start in some ghostly way of its own to issue from a shining ball of no one could say what. But it was not the light, it was what it showed that terrified the cadets, and made them give vent to one last despairing shriek.
In the first place, let it be said that the light came from an inverted basket hiding a candle, set off by a time fuse the ingenious Parson had made. As for the rest, well, there were six gleaming skeletons stretched about on the floor of that horrible place, the skulls grinning frightfully, seeming to leer at the helpless victims.
The four were incapable of the least sound; their tongues were paralyzed, and their bodies too. Their eyes fairly started from their heads as they stared. They were beyond the possibility of further fright, and what came next seemed natural.
Those skeletons began to move!
First one round, white head, with its shining black holes of eyes and rows of glistening teeth, began to roll slowly across the floor. Then it sailed up into the air; then it dropped slowly down again, and finally settled in one corner and grinned out at the gasping cadets.
“Wasn’t that smart of me?” it seemed to say. “I’ll do it again. Watch me now. Watch!”
And it sailed up into the air once more, and swung about in the blackness and went over toward the prisoners and then started back. Finally it tumbled down to the ground, hitting its own original bones with a hollow crack. And then it was still.