t as he
waited now in the deep, enveloping night, and heard no sound save the
haunting voices caused by the wind and the low, monotonous singing of
the forest life, it seemed unthinkable that any thrilling sequel of his
singular experience in his little room could occur. Everything was the
same as usual, the crickets chirping, the owl calling, the little
graveyard down the road wrapped in darkness.... Glory was not going to
knock on the humble door of Peter Piper of Piper's Crossroads....

Peter glanced down the dark road toward the graveyard; he had always
hurried past that spot when coming home from the crossroads at night.
Once he had seen a ghostly figure on the stone wall, which, on more
careful inspection the next morning, proved to be the sexton's shovel
with his hat on top of it. The little church was around the bend of the
road, within the hallowed acre.

Suddenly, as Peter glanced in the direction where the old leaning
gravestones were wrapped in darkness, he saw something which harrowed
his very soul and made his blood run cold. One of those stones was
bathed in a dim, shadowy light. It was startling to see just one stone
and no others. It was not a light so much as an area of gossamer
brightness that enveloped it, a kind of gauze shroud. Peter gazed,
unable to stir, his breaths coming short and fast. Then this dim shroud
left the tombstone and glided slowly through the graveyard, shedding its
hovering brightness upon a small area of the stone wall as it crossed,
and came steadily, steadily over toward Peter Piper.

CHAPTER XXII

HARK! THE CONQUERING HERO COMES

"What the dickens is this, anyway; a cemetery?" said Mr. Swiper, poking
the finding light this way and that as the car of a thousand delights
came slowly up toward the bend. "It's some rocky road to Dublin, all
right."

He cast the light along the dark road behind them and looked
apprehensively back as far as he could see. Evidently there was no cause
for fear there and he dropped the car of a thousand delights into second
gear and picked his way along the narrow, rocky way, below the bend. "I
guess it will be better when we get around here," he said; "we have to
watch our step in this jungle. Nice place to build a church, huh?" He
threw the finding light upon the little edifice ahead and brightened the
small stained-glass window, casting a soft reflection upon Deacon
Small's slanting marble slab nearby.

The small figure in a gray sw