en something in my voice which bespoke my horror, for
a dead silence ensued.

But not for long. Once more the dull, dragging sound, interrupted by
the spasmodic and fruitless leaps!

A shudder went round the dormitory at the sound. They knew as well as I
did what it meant.

"It's the ghost!" faltered Sparrow's trembling voice; and no one
contradicted him. Fergus himself, like one suddenly confronted with a
spirit of his own raising, seemed the most terrified of the lot, and I
could hear him gasping as he sat petrified in his bed.

"Can't some one strike a light?" Lamb said presently.

All very well, but the matches were on the table, and to secure them one
would have to get out of bed. No one seemed quite inclined for that.

As we lay endeavouring to screw up our courage to the necessary pitch,
the sound once more recommenced, with a violent motion towards the edge
of the roof. The moon at the same moment broke out from behind the
clouds and shot its pale light in at the big windows. There was a
momentary pause above us, and then, casting a sudden shadow across the
dormitory floor, a dim white figure, as of a body without limbs, floated
down outside the window. The moon once more was obscured, and we were
left motionless and horrified in utter silence and darkness! What would
come next?

How long we might have remained in suspense I can't say, had not Lamb
and another fellow, by a combined effort of heroism, dashed arm in arm
from bed and secured the matches. They were in the act of striking a
light (one match had broken, and another had had no head)--they were in
the act of striking a light when Lamb, who was close to the window,
suddenly exclaimed--"Look!"

There was such terror in his tone that we knew only too well what he had
seen. But where!

"Where?" I managed to gasp.

"There, down in the quad," he replied, pointing out of the window, but
looking another way.

Curiosity is sometimes greater than fear, and for all my terror I could
not resist the impulse to steal up to the window and look out. And
others did the same.

It was as Lamb had said. There in the quadrangle below, moving
restlessly to and fro, and swaying itself upward, as if in supplication,
was the white form, erect but helpless. For a long time we gazed
without a word. At last, one more hardy than the rest said--"What can
it be?"

What a question! What could it be but--Bubbles! Still, when the
question was once ask