hen in a fit condition
to believe anything, no matter how absurd, for his poor heart was
fluttering in his manly bosom just as you have doubtless felt the
tiny organ of a bird throb when you held the frightened thing in your
hand.

They all kept in a bunch, and thus arrived at the rock at the same
time. Every scout came to a sudden stop. Their eyes, dilated with
amazement, were turned toward the region where those sounds still
welled forth, shouts and blows and shrieks making a conglomeration
that was simply appalling. So stunned were Hugh and his mates that
for a brief time their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths.

CHAPTER VIII

AS IN THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY

"W-what's it all mean, Hugh?" Billy was gasping, as he stood there with
quaking knees, and just stared and stared.

Indeed, for the moment Hugh could not have answered him, he was himself
so busily engaged in looking. There was good and sufficient reason for
the eyes of every one being glued on the remarkable sight taking place
before them, for surely such an amazing spectacle had never before
been witnessed in America, nor indeed for some hundreds of years even
in the old country.

The castle was no longer given over to the owls and bats and rats. It
now seemed to be fairly swarming with moving figures, and such figures!
Hugh blinked, and took a second look before he could actually believe
his eyes.

Why, there were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century,
on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances,
and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling
from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel
were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements
for casting missiles; some of them were climbing short scaling ladders
only to be rudely hurled down again by some of the valiant defenders
who manned the top of the walls.

The drawbridge had been raised, and the portcullis protected the door,
but the gallant assailants had apparently thrown a bridge hastily
constructed across the moat, and they were certainly as busy as a hive
of bees that had struck a mine of sugar.

It was a wonderful scene, and the five scouts could hardly be blamed
for thinking they must be dreaming, everything was so unreal, so like
a page torn from history in the times of the Crusaders.

Perhaps one or more of them began to believe that a host of spirits
be