rounded by the
insignia of more than despotic rule, where towered the "thunderer of the
scene," transfixed _in articulo jactanti_, lo! an Ajax defying the
lightning.

And now what weird forms from the "night's Plutonian shore" are those
which, joined in close procession, invade the folding doors, and with
thunderous steps--matched in echo--storm down the quaking aisles? Doomed
spirits, or ministers of heaven's delayed vengeance, it matters little;
and 'neath such a materialized spell from the echoless lands, who could
doubt, or doubting, live? On they come, looking neither to the right nor
left, neither mending their gait nor halting, until they have plunged _in
medias res_, when, with a scarcely perceptible pause--those ponderous
boot-heels, describing a half circle, smite the puncheon floor--every limb
is adjusted to the most graceful of company manoeuvres; and turning on
their march, they move with the same echoing tread down the aisles, out at
the folding-doors and into the darkness--away--away.

But stop, ha! that sigh of relief springing to a hundred throats was
premature--the fiend hath but dismissed his attendants, himself remains.
Standing ten feet in his boots, and clad in full Ku-Klux regalia
(described in a previous chapter), an embodiment of rank ghostliness, he
now occupied the centre of the building, and if anything was wanting to
that "ghastly, grim, ungainly" ideal, which those who placed it there were
seeking to embody, it was supplied in the most threatening of tragic
postures, and a gesture whose very fixedness was not its least eloquent
feature. This latter described a horizontal line from the shoulder to the
finger-tips, and, _horribile dictu_, the index-finger was pointed squarely
at the anatomy of the august personage who was--had been, we should
say--presiding over the deliberations of the body. For about twenty
seconds that individual had been viewing the landscape from the _de
mortuis_ standpoint; but being recalled to animation by the excessive
personality of this proceeding, he executed three handslings and a
somersault, and was at rest for the time being in a pile of superannuated
furniture at the far end of the hall. Then there was a rush from the
"third person" element, who could but feel that the grammatical situation
was getting momentarily worse. Benches and desks were overturned; stoves
and stove furniture came tumbling about their heads; a pillar, swept from
its moorings by the huma