rn.

"But I tried," began Jules, timidly.

His trembling excuse was interrupted by Brossard, who had seized him by
the arm. They were now on the threshold of the barn, which was as dark
as a pocket inside.

Joyce, peeping through the crack of the door, saw the man's arm raised
in the dim twilight outside. "Oh, he is really going to beat him," she
thought, turning faint at the prospect. Then her indignation overcame
every other feeling as she heard a heavy halter-strap whiz through the
air and fall with a sickening blow across Jules's shoulders. She had
planned a scene something like this while she worked away at the lantern
that afternoon. Now she felt as if she were acting a part in some
private theatrical performance. Jules's cry gave her the cue, and the
courage to appear.

As the second blow fell across Jules's smarting shoulders, a low,
blood-curdling wail came from the dark depths of the barn. Joyce had not
practised that dismal moan of a banshee to no purpose in her ghost
dances at home with Jack. It rose and fell and quivered and rose again
in cadences of horror. There was something awful, something inhuman, in
that fiendish, long-drawn shriek.

Brossard's arm fell to his side paralyzed with fear, as that same hoarse
voice cried, solemnly: "Brossard, beware! Beware!" But worse than that
voice of sepulchral warning was the white-sheeted figure, coming towards
him with a wavering, ghostly motion, fire shooting from the demon-like
eyes, and flaming from the hideous mouth.

Brossard sank on his knees in a shivering heap, and began crossing
himself. His hair was upright with horror, and his tongue stiff. Jules
knew who it was that danced around them in such giddy circles, first
darting towards them with threatening gestures, and then gliding back to
utter one of those awful, sickening wails. He knew that under that
fiery head and wrapped in that spectral dress was his "fearless friend,"
who, according to promise, had hastened her aid to lend; nevertheless,
he was afraid of her himself. He had never imagined that anything could
look so terrifying.

The wail reached Henri's ears and aroused his curiosity. Cautiously
opening the kitchen door, he thrust out his head, and then nearly fell
backward in his haste to draw it in again and slam the door. One glimpse
of the ghost in the barnyard was quite enough for Henri.

Altogether the performance probably did not last longer than a minute,
but each of the sixty sec