d a climax.

It was with some difficulty that the bold adventurer raised himself
high enough to see into the room, and it was only for one instant that
he occupied such a position. Just as his face appeared at the window
another face--a horrid face, from which a pair of large melancholy eyes
glowed with a wild fierce light--presented itself opposite Yaspard, and
stared out at him in a manner to startle the stoutest man alive.

Our hero did not wait for a second glance at that dreadful apparition,
but descended from his equivocal position much more rapidly than he had
reached it.

"What was it? Tell us quick," whispered Lowrie, and both he and his
brother were trembling with fear. They had caught a glimpse of the
face that had met Yaspard's, and its unearthly appearance had been
greatly exaggerated by the shadows and the distance. Although they
were too intelligent to credit any story of trows, they had lively
imaginations, and had been bred in a land where the mysteries of
creation take fantastic shapes in the minds of a wonder-loving and
superstitious peasantry. They had shrunk from penetrating the secrets
of that haunted room, and were not altogether surprised, though
entirely frightened, that "something" had "appeared" to rebuke and
check their leader's audacity.

While Yaspard gasped for breath after his hasty descent the Harrisons
again begged, "Tell us quick about it," but Yaspard was in no hurry to
tell. He retreated again into the ruin, whither his companions
followed, and, sitting down by the loaded keschies, he cast his eyes on
the ground and would not speak.

There was something awesome in the silence, in the surroundings, in the
whole adventure, therefore it is not to be wondered that Lowrie felt
creepy, and Gibbie's teeth chattered in his head.

At last the elder brother took courage to say, "Let's go back to our
boat. There's nae gude tae be got o' sitting here like gaping fish
left dry and high upon a skerry."

"Put the keschies in the passage, anyway," said Yaspard, agreeing to
the proposal; but the Harrisons were not willing to enter that passage
again, so they suggested another hiding-place, namely, the chimney,
which was stopped up and grown over _above_, but had capacious ledges
inside which suited admirably for the purpose they required. Their
things were deposited there, and then the three adventurers stole
silently away from Trullyabister, two feeling crestfallen and very
uncomfor