He still could not make out the dead man’s form. Carefully he jerked the top clear back, and the four spectators were terrified. If they had been out of the pit in which they stood it is doubtful whether they would have remained for a second glance. As it was, they were standing on the edge of the casket, and could not readily escape.
The old man’s form was turned over, and hunched up, as if he had vainly striven to lift the tons of earth that held him a captive. His right arm was stretched out along the side of his prison, and the nails of his fingers were torn off. The sides of the casket were clawed and scratched, and the scalp of the dead man was frightfully lacerated. All his hair had been pulled out by the roots and a wad of it was still fiercely clasped in the miser’s left hand.
Even while they looked on a greater fear consumed them.
“Ha-ha, ha-ha,” demoniacal laughter came to their ears.
This was too much. Clawing and scrambling, they clambered over each other in trying to get out of the pit.
“Ha-ha, ha-ha,” the shrill laughter continued from far up the hillside.
It pursued the fleeing men. To their terrified minds the fiendish sounds seemed to be taken up and re-echoed by each of the tombstones which they passed in their flight.
“Ha-ha, ha-ha! Ha-ha, ha-ha! Ha-ha, ha-ha!” The ghostly shrieks rang in their ears, as they raced toward the village.
Unexplained, the mystery continued to frighten the superstitious for two days after the miser had been reburied. Then a tragedy partially turned their attention from this weird affair.
The body of the girl whose mother had been turned out of her home, was found floating in the river not far from the little village.