a hand to his brow, rose and
staggered from the room. The other sat waiting and twirling his black
moustache, with an evil smile. John, who by this time had found a seat
in a far corner, thought him the most poisonous-looking villain he had
ever seen; but as the minutes passed and nothing happened, he turned his
back to the light and pulled out a penny-dreadful. His literary taste
was shocking, and when it came to romance he liked the incidents to
follow one another with great rapidity.

He was interrupted by a blood-curdling groan, and the first ruffian
broke into the room, dragging by its grey locks the body of an old man.
A young girl followed, weeping and protesting, with dishevelled hair,
and behind her entered a priest with a brazier full of glowing charcoal.
The girl cast herself forward on the old man's body, but the two
scoundrels dragged her from it by force. "The money!" demanded the dark
one; and she drew from her bosom a small key and cast it at his feet.
"My promise!" demanded the other, and seized her by the wrist as the
priest stepped forward. "Quick! over this coffin--man and wife!"
She wrenched her hand away and thrust him backward. The priest
retreated to the brazier and drew out a red-hot iron.

John thought it about time to interfere.

"I beg your pardon," said he, stepping forward; "but I suppose you
really _are_ ghosts?"

"We are unhallowed souls," answered the dark man impressively,
"who return to blight the living with the spectacle of our awful
crimes."

"Meaning me?" asked John.

"Ay, sir; and to destroy you to-night if you contract not, upon your
soul, to return with your bride and meet us here a twelvemonth hence."

"H'm!" said John to himself, "they are three to one; and, after all,
it's what I came for. I suppose," he added aloud, "some form of
document is usual in these cases?"

The dark man drew out pen and parchment.

"Hold forth your hand," he commanded; and as John held it out, thinking
he meant to shake it over the bargain, the fellow drove the pen into his
wrist until the blood spurted. "Now sign!"

"Sign!" said the other villain.

"Sign!" said the lady.

"Oh, very well, miss. If you're in the swindle too, my mind is easier,"
said John, and signed his name with a flourish. "But a bargain is a
bargain, and what security have I for your part in it?"

"Our signature!" said the priest terribly, at the same moment pressing
his branding-iron into John's ankle.