"Ghosts don"t like a bright light!" Merry reminded, smiling grimly. Bart got up, closed the door, and sat down again.
Then his hair seemed to stand upright on his head. Out of the shadow of the building, near one of the angles, walked the ghostly form which Merriwell had beheld. Hodge was unable to speak at first. Merry noticed his manner and the look in his staring eyes, and sprang to the window.
As he did so, the ghostly form vanished into the shadow, and again those steps were heard in the corridor.
"If Barney is dead, that was his spirit, sure enough!" Hodge whispered, in an awed way.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!
The steps echoed in the corridor. Even Merriwell"s stout heart was a.s.sailed by a feeling that was like superst.i.tious dread.
"It looked just like him!"
"The very picture of him, only white-faced, as if he had just come out of the grave!"
Tramp, tramp, tramp! sounded the steps in the corridor.
"Open the door, Merry, for G.o.d"s sake!" Hodge gasped, as if the words choked him. "See if there isn"t something in the corridor! There must be!"
Merriwell stepped to the door and flung it open. Instantly the sounds ceased.
"Somebody is playing a joke on us, I believe!" Bart declared, and anger came to drive out the superst.i.tious feeling that had shaken him. "I"m going to take a look round the house myself, and if I find anybody----"
"I"ll go with you!" Merry exclaimed, and both leaped through the open window.
They circled round the house, looked down the paths and out over the sward on which the moonlight fell, but not a form could they see.
"Give it up!" Hodge admitted. "I don"t know what to think."
They came back to the window, and again they heard the footsteps in the corridor. Hodge went through the window at a flying leap and hurled open the corridor door, only to again find silence and blankness.
"The place is haunted!" he exclaimed.
"But there are no such things as ghosts!"
"I know it. Of course, there can"t be--that"s what I have always believed. I have always fancied that stories of ghosts were lies and foolishness, and I"m not ready to back water on that belief. But I can"t understand this business."
"Nor I."
"Shall we call the landlord again?"
"What good will it do?"
"Shall we wake Inza?"
"And rob her of her rest and fill her with anxiety? No, let her sleep.
She needs it."
"Well, I shall not be able to sleep any more to-night."
"And it looked just like Barney!" Frank declared.
"His very image!"
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PHANTOM AGAIN.
Both Merriwell and Hodge were so sure they had seen something that they again let themselves out through the window and made a search of the grounds. The result was the same. Not a moving form was to be seen. But as they returned toward the room, they once more heard those mysterious footsteps.
"Stop!"
Frank laid a hand on Bart"s arm, and both stood still and listened.
"Where does that seem to be?"
"Merry, that"s coming from your room! The thing is in your room!"
Hodge"s voice shook, in spite of himself.
Frank dashed toward the open window. But before he could reach it, the sounds ceased. When he looked in, the room was empty. The light was shining, and the door leading to the corridor was closed.
"No one could have got out of that room without our knowing it!"
Merriwell whispered. Hodge had reached his side, and both were staring into the room.
"Of course not. The thing is impossible."
"And yet those footsteps sounded right here."
"Let"s go in and take another look into the corridor."
For answer Merry drew Bart back into the shadows by the window.
"Keep still right here a little while. Perhaps the--the thing will return. If some one is playing us a trick, we may capture him."
"I should like to lay my hands on the villain!" Bart hissed. Though they stood there in utter silence for five minutes, the sounds did not come again.
"Of course, there is some rational explanation of this," Merriwell declared, as they again approached the window. "There must be! It is the wildest nonsense to think otherwise."
"Well, I wish that rational explanation would hurry this way. I"m ready for it, old man! This thing is shaking my nerves all to pieces."
"I didn"t know you were troubled with nerves! Nerves are for hysterical girls and old women!"
"Well, I"ve got "em now! as the drunken man said when he began to see snakes. I haven"t any doubt about it."
Hodge so seldom indulged in a joke, that Merry looked surprised. They had reentered the room, and he glanced at his friend in wonder.