hey gave
previous notice of the pilgrimage by small posters, and warned everybody
to keep indoors and darken all houses along the route, and leave the
road empty. These warnings were obeyed, for there was a skull and
crossbones at the top of the poster.

When this kind of thing had been going on about eight weeks, a quite
natural thing happened. A few men of character and grit woke up out of
the nightmare of fear which had been stupefying their faculties, and
began to discharge scorn and scoffings at themselves and the community
for enduring this child's-play; and at the same time they proposed to
end it straightway. Everybody felt an uplift; life was breathed into
their dead spirits; their courage rose and they began to feel like
men again. This was on a Saturday. All day the new feeling grew and
strengthened; it grew with a rush; it brought inspiration and cheer with
it. Midnight saw a united community, full of zeal and pluck, and with
a clearly defined and welcome piece of work in front of it. The best
organizer and strongest and bitterest talker on that great Saturday was
the Presbyterian clergyman who had denounced the original four from his
pulpit--Rev. Hiram Fletcher--and he promised to use his pulpit in the
public interest again now. On the morrow he had revelations to make, he
said--secrets of the dreadful society.

But the revelations were never made. At half past two in the morning the
dead silence of the village was broken by a crashing explosion, and
the town patrol saw the preacher's house spring in a wreck of whirling
fragments into the sky. The preacher was killed, together with a negro
woman, his only slave and servant.

The town was paralyzed again, and with reason. To struggle against a
visible enemy is a thing worth while, and there is a plenty of men who
stand always ready to undertake it; but to struggle against an invisible
one--an invisible one who sneaks in and does his awful work in the dark
and leaves no trace--that is another matter. That is a thing to make the
bravest tremble and hold back.

The cowed populace were afraid to go to the funeral. The man who was
to have had a packed church to hear him expose and denounce the common
enemy had but a handful to see him buried. The coroner's jury had
brought in a verdict of "death by the visitation of God," for no witness
came forward; if any existed they prudently kept out of the way. Nobody
seemed sorry. Nobody wanted to see the terrible secr