s of the distant surge. The night was dark,
and only illuminated by the feeble twinkling of half clouded stars.

They had watched until about midnight, when they were alarmed by noises
in the rooms below, among which they could distinguish footsteps and
human voices. Alonzo and Edgar, then taking each a pistol in one hand,
and a drawn sword in the other, ordered their men to follow them,
prepared for action. Coming to the head of the stairs, they saw a
brilliant light streaming into the hall; they therefore concluded to
take no candles, and to prevent discovery they took off their shoes.
When they came into the hall opposite the door of the room from whence
the light and noises proceeded, they discovered ten men genteelly
dressed, sitting around a table, on which was placed a considerable
quantity of gold and silver coin, a number of glasses and several
decanters of wine. Alonzo and his party stood a few minutes, listening
to the following discourse, which took place among this _ghostly_
gentry.

"Well, boys, we have made a fine haul this trip."----"Yes, but poor Bob,
though, was plump'd over by the d----d skulkers!"----"Aye, and had we
not tugged bravely at the oars, they would have hook'd us."----"Rascally
cow-boys detained us too long."----"Well, never mind it; let us knock
around the wine, and then divide the spoil."

At this moment, Alonzo and Edgar, followed by the five men, rushed into
the room, crying. "_Surrender, or you are all dead men!_" In an instant
the room was involved in pitchy darkness; a loud crash was heard, then a
scampering about the floor, and a noise as if several doors shut to,
with violence. They however gave the alarm to the men without, by loudly
shouting "_Look out_;" and immediately the discharge of several guns was
heard around the mansion. One of the men flew up stairs and brought a
light; but, to their utter amazement, no person was to be discovered in
the room except their own party. The table, with its apparatus, and the
chairs on which these now invisible beings had sat, had disappeared, not
a single trace of them being left.

While they stood petrified with astonishment, the men from without
called for admittance. The door being unlocked, they led in a stranger
wounded, whom they immediately discovered to be one of those they had
seen at the table.

The men who had been stationed around the mansion informed, that some
time before the alarm was made, they saw a number of persons