wound it, and then, very gingerly, he approached the slab on which I lay.
I felt a light blow as one end of the rope fell across me. Peter was going to take no chances on midnight ghosts. He was going to tie us all firmly to the slabs!
Whistling to keep up his courage, he proceeded with his task. In a few minutes I was firmly bound. I could not have moved if I dared.
Then he cut away the remaining piece of rope and proceeded to truss up Chic in the same way. He had to struggle to make the two ends of the cord meet.
There was none left for the real corpse, and, though he hunted diligently in all parts of the room, he could find no more.
He surveyed the two of us, bound firmly. to the slabs, and evidently felt reassured. He decided to take a chance on the third body remaining still and retired to his room, closing the door and leaving us alone in the creepy, moonlit mortuary.
How I cursed Chic as I lay there unable to move, listening to the gradually deepening breathing of Peter as he dropped into a sound sleep. What if he should leave us bound until the professors arrived in the morning? What a fine row there would be!
These, and other unpleasant thoughts running through my mind, were suddenly checked by a slight sound which turned me cold from head to foot. Horrified, I gazed through the small chink in my covering. I could not believe my eyes.
The corpse of the maniac had moved!
THERE came a faint rustle of his covering shroud, and the body moved again ever so slightly. I wanted to shriek in terror, but I was paralyzed. The shroud moved again, this time more noticeably. My scalp tightened, and I could feel the gooseflesh rising all over my body.
Then, with one sudden motion, the maniac sat bolt upright and threw the shroud from him.
He was clothed only in a long, hospital nightgown. His thin hair stood up in tangled wisps, and his eyes blazed like those of a cat in a dark room.
Slowly he surveyed his surroundings, and then burst into the most hideous laughter I have ever heard. His big, yellow teeth seemed like the fangs of a wild animal. I could imagine them rending my flesh.
The echo of his hideous mirth had hardly died away when Peter burst from his room, clad in his night clothes. His knees almost gave way as he took in the dreadful scene. Horror was apparent in every line of his body, and I had an inexplicable desire to laugh. But by a supreme effort I fought off this hysteria.
Quite calmly the madman swung his legs down from the slab and sat there on its edge, transfixing poor Peter with his terrible gaze. He chuckled.
Peter commenced to back toward his room. In an instant the madman was at him.
Then commenced a wild chase around the room, of which I could only catch fleeting glimpses as they passed on one side of my slab. Once the maniac rested bony hands on my body as he prepared for a new rush at Peter, whom I could hear breathing near by.
Bound hand and foot, Chic and I were unable to make a move, even if terror had not prevented us.
Untiringly, cunningly, the madman pursued his prey. Peter dodged and squirmed in terror. Perspiration poured from his face. But his efforts were futile. He was penned in a corner, at last, where a door led directly to a stairway in the corridor.
Step by step, the madman approached him, his long fingers outstretched like talons, and a low, gleeful laugh came from his lips. Peter backed desperately away from him, as though he hoped to press through the great oaken door. The maniac's fingers were almost at his throat, when the door swung back suddenly and Peter tumbled from the room, his body bumping and thudding on the stairs outside.
Startled by the sudden disappearance of his victim, the madman halted a moment. The door automatically swung shut again, firmly this time. Apparently, it had not been. tightly closed before. The insane creature flung himself at it. It repelled him. He shrieked and tore at it, but to no avail, and he finally turned away.
His eyes, now wilder than ever, swept the room. They rested on our bound figures. Swiftly, he passed over to where I lay. The rope puzzled him, and he was still for a moment.
Suddenly he grasped it and snapped it as though it had been thread. I was free, but I did not move. I waited for him to seize me, but his footsteps shuffled away. He was beside Chic now. I heard the rope which bound him snap.
In desperation, I rolled from the slab and rose trembling to my feet. The noise attracted the crazed being. He turned and faced me.
His features were distorted, into a horrible grin. His sharp, cruel teeth gnashed as if in expectation of a bloody feast. He leaped at me, clearing the slab, on which I had lain, at one bound.
I was too weak to dodge, but I tried grimly to clinch with him, as I had seen groggy boxers do when they were sparring for time. I was in his arms. His eyes blazed not a foot from mine. Foam flecked his mouth. His weight pressed against me. It grew heavier and heavier.
Then my overwrought nerves gave way, and I became unconscious.
WHEN I awoke I was outside in the cool night air. Chic was bathing my brow with muddy water from a road-side pool. The madman had collapsed at the same moment as I had. In a daze, Chic had laid him again on the slab and had dragged me from the building.
Poor Peter we forgot, until he was found the next morning, haggard, white-haired and unable to utter an intelligible word.
Too vivid an imagination, wrought into a frenzy by the uncanny surroundings, was the way the doctors diagnosed his strange case. Chic and I were too dazed to shatter the theory.
As for the madman, he had really died, after the short spell of suspended animation and temporary revival. I know this because his gaunt skeleton was one of the principal decorations at our graduation dance.
But, even with this assurance, I sometimes wake at night in a cold sweat, and feel for the butt of the revolver under my pillow.
Arrest Woman Accused of Witchcraft
POPULAR rumors of a sorceress in the Logan Square district of Chicago led to the arrest of Mrs. Emily Elhert for practising medicine without a license. The woman styled herself a spiritualist and claimed the ability to heal any disease. She would make mysterious passes over her patients, and applied an evil-smelling salve, the composition of which is not known. Each visit cost the patient two dollars, and Mrs. Elhert is said to have made very good money until the police interfered with her career.
