a royal
funeral barge. At my head I noticed a carved device, seven mailed hands
snatching at a sword with the motto: "CAVE ADSUM!"

"Beware, I am here!" I translated. Who was here? Ghosts? Fudge! What
hideous scenes had this chamber beheld of yore? What might not happen
here now? Where, by the way, was old Hobson's daughter, Anita? Might not
anything be possible? I covered my head with the bedclothes.

* * * * *

Next morning being mild and bright for December, and Thaddeus Hobson and
his mysterious daughter not having showed up for breakfast, I amused
myself by inspecting the exterior of the castle. In daylight I could see
that Gauntmoor, as now restored, consisted of only a portion of the
original structure. On the west side, near a sheer fall of forty or
fifty feet, stood the donjon tower, a fine piece of medieval barbarism
with a peaked roof. And, sure enough! I saw it all now. Running along
the entire west side of the castle was a wonderful wall, stretching
above the moat to a dizzy height. It was no difficult matter to mount
this wall from the courtyard, above which it rose no more than eight or
ten feet. I ascended by a rude sentry's staircase, and once on top I
gazed upward at the tall medieval prison-place, which reared above me
like a clumsy stone chimney. Just as I stood, at the top of the wall, I
was ten or twelve feet below the lowest window of the donjon tower.
This, then, was the wall that the ancient Pierrepont had scaled, and
yonder was the donjon window that he had planned to plunder on that
fatal night so long ago. And this was where Pierrepont the Ghost was
supposed to appear!

How the lover of spectral memory had managed to scale that wall from the
outside, I could not quite make out. But once _on_ the wall, it was no
trick to snatch the damsel from her durance vile. Just drop a long rope
ladder from the wall to the moat, then crawl along the narrow ledge--got
to be careful with a job like that--then up to the window of the donjon
keep, and away with the Lady Fair. Why, that window above the ramparts
would be an easy climb for a fellow with strong arms and a little nerve,
as the face of the tower from the wall to the window was studded with
ancient spikes and the projecting ends of beams.

I counted the feet, one, two, three--and as I looked up at the window,
a small, white hand reached out and a pink slip of paper dropped at my
feet. It read:

DEAR SIR: I'm Mis