adow of
the building, near one of the angles, walked the ghostly form which
Merriwell had beheld. Hodge was unable to speak at first. Merry noticed
his manner and the look in his staring eyes, and sprang to the window.
As he did so, the ghostly form vanished into the shadow, and again those
steps were heard in the corridor.

"If Barney is dead, that was his spirit, sure enough!" Hodge whispered,
in an awed way.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!

The steps echoed in the corridor. Even Merriwell's stout heart was
assailed by a feeling that was like superstitious dread.

"It looked just like him!"

"The very picture of him, only white-faced, as if he had just come out
of the grave!"

Tramp, tramp, tramp! sounded the steps in the corridor.

"Open the door, Merry, for God's sake!" Hodge gasped, as if the words
choked him. "See if there isn't something in the corridor! There must
be!"

Merriwell stepped to the door and flung it open. Instantly the sounds
ceased.

"Somebody is playing a joke on us, I believe!" Bart declared, and anger
came to drive out the superstitious feeling that had shaken him. "I'm
going to take a look round the house myself, and if I find anybody----"

"I'll go with you!" Merry exclaimed, and both leaped through the open
window.

They circled round the house, looked down the paths and out over the
sward on which the moonlight fell, but not a form could they see.

"Give it up!" Hodge admitted. "I don't know what to think."

They came back to the window, and again they heard the footsteps in the
corridor. Hodge went through the window at a flying leap and hurled open
the corridor door, only to again find silence and blankness.

"The place is haunted!" he exclaimed.

"But there are no such things as ghosts!"

"I know it. Of course, there can't be--that's what I have always
believed. I have always fancied that stories of ghosts were lies and
foolishness, and I'm not ready to back water on that belief. But I can't
understand this business."

"Nor I."

"Shall we call the landlord again?"

"What good will it do?"

"Shall we wake Inza?"

"And rob her of her rest and fill her with anxiety? No, let her sleep.
She needs it."

"Well, I shall not be able to sleep any more to-night."

"And it looked just like Barney!" Frank declared.

"His very image!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PHANTOM AGAIN.

Both Merriwell and Hodge were so sure they had seen something that they
again let themselv