ct the completion of our apparatus under three or four
days. As soon as we were prepared, we returned to the mansion. As we
approached the house, it appears the lady heard us, for again she
suddenly flung up a window and held out a candle: we skulked from the
light, but feared she had a glimpse of us.--After we had got into the
house we were still until we supposed her to be asleep, which we found
to be the case on going to her chamber.

"We then stationed one near her bed, who, by a loud rap on the floor
with a cane, appeared to arouse her in a fright. Loud noises were then
made below, and some of them ran heavily up the stairs which led to her
chamber; the person stationed in the room whispering near her bed--she
raised herself up, and he fled behind the curtains. Soon after she again
lay down; he approached nearer the bed with a design to lay his hand,
on which he had drawn a thin sheet-lead glove, across her face; but
discovering her arm on the out side of the bedclothes, he grasped
it--she screamed and sprang up in the bed; the man then left the room.

"As it was not our intention to injure the lady, but only to drive her
from the house, we concluded we had sufficiently alarmed her, and having
extinguished the lights, were about to depart, when we heard her
descending the stairs. She came down and examined the doors, when one of
our party, in a loud whisper, crying "_away! away_;" she darted up
stairs, and we left the house.

"We did not return the next night, in order to give her time to get off;
but the night after we again repaired to the mansion, expecting that she
had gone, but we were disappointed. As it was late when we arrived, she
was wrapped in sleep, and we found that more forcible measures must be
resorted to before we could remove her, and for such measures we were
amply prepared."

The stranger then unfolded the mysteries of that awful night, when
Melissa was so terrified by horrible appearances. One of the tallest and
most robust of the gang, was attired, as has been described, when he
appeared by her bed side. The white robe was an old sheet, stained in
some parts with a liquid red mixture; the wound in his breast was
artificial, and the blood issuing therefrom was only some of this
mixture, pressed from a small bladder, concealed under his robe. On his
head and face he wore a mask, with glass eyes----the mask was painted to
suit their purposes. The bloody dagger was of wood, and painted.

Thus