Chapter 26

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.

"Likely that--thing will begin to walk again pretty soon," said Frank, after they had remained another minute or so in a listening attitude. "You sit here and watch by this window, while I slip into the corridor."

Hodge obediently dropped into the chair, and Merriwell let himself into the corridor. He closed the door after him, so that if any one approached or entered the corridor that person could not see him, and began his vigil.

The silence was so great that he could hear his watch ticking away in his pocket. It seemed strange that it should run after its salt-water ducking, but he reasoned that probably the works were not touched by the salt water. His clothing had dried long ago, but he felt the need of a change. However, he had taken a bath since reaching the hotel, and so was in a measure comfortable.

There was a great deal to think of as he stood there in the gloom, but the minutes dragged along like weeks. This sort of vigil was rather nerve-trying. He was sure, now that he had time to think about it, that some very little thing might account for the mystery. He began to think that the footsteps had probably been made by some servant or by a somnambulist. Sounds are very deceptive as to direction, as he more than once had discovered. The footsteps might have been at some distance from the corridor.

"But that doesn't explain what I saw and what Bart saw!" he muttered. "I might have thought my eyes deceived me, but Bart saw it, too. That was either Barney Mulloy, or some one who looks marvelously like him. If it was really Barney, then the poor fellow is not dead! I sincerely hope we shall find out that he was not killed. Perhaps the entire newspaper report was based on a mistake. The papers are full of errors."

The sounds did not come again, and when it seemed almost useless to wait longer for them, he returned to the room, where he found Bart watching silently by the window.

"Seen anything?" he asked.

"No. Heard anything?"

"Not a thing."

"I didn't suppose you had, or I should have heard it, too."

"It will probably not reappear to-night."

"Well, I'm not in love with ghosts, but I have been wild to have the thing pass along that walk again. It wouldn't get away from me this time! I've planned just what to do."

"What?"

"I can reach that walk in three jumps from this window, and it would take a lively ghost to get away from me. I was going right out there the first glimpse I got of it."

"Then you're not afraid of ghosts?" laughed Frank, for there was something amusing in his companion's manner.

"I might be, Merry, if there were any. But I've been thinking as I sat here. I know I saw something, and that something was a man. He didn't look so strong but that I could tumble him over easy enough. That was my plan, and then we could see who it is. It couldn't have been Barney, for all it looked so much like him."

As he spoke, he saw the ghostly figure again, but much farther away. Its face was turned toward the window, and the moonlight revealed it plainly. Beyond all question, it was the face of Barney Mulloy!

Bart went through the open window at a bound.

"Barney!" he called. "Barney Mulloy!"

The mysterious figure drew quickly back into the shrubbery and disappeared. Merriwell sprang through the open window after Hodge, and together they raced to the point where the figure had been seen. When they got there they could discover nothing.

"That was Barney Mulloy!" Merriwell asserted.

"Sure!"

"And he isn't dead!"

"Barney or his spirit!"

"It was Barney."

"Why didn't he stop when I called to him?"

"I don't know. There is a mystery here."

"Biggest one I ever struck, Merry! It knocks me silly."