solemn
and affecting way.

* * * * *

At midnight, three figures were seen to issue from Widow Bluebeard's
house, and pass through the churchyard turnstile, and so away among the
graves.

"To call up a ghost is bad enough," said the wizard; "to make him speak
is awful. I recommend you, ma'am, to beware, for such curiosity has been
fatal to many. There was one Arabian necromancer of my acquaintance who
tried to make a ghost speak, and was torn in pieces on the spot. There
was another person who _did_ hear a ghost speak certainly, but came away
from the interview deaf and dumb. There was another--"

"Never mind," says Mrs. Bluebeard, all her old curiosity aroused, "see
him and hear him I will. Haven't I seen him and heard him, too, already?
When he's audible _and_ visible, _then_'s the time."

"But when you heard him," said the necromancer, "he was invisible, and
when you saw him he was inaudible; so make up your mind what you will
ask him, for ghosts will stand no shilly-shallying. I knew a stuttering
man who was flung down by a ghost, and--"

"I _have_ made up my mind," said Fatima, interrupting him.

"To ask him what husband you shall take," whispered Anne.

Fatima only turned red, and Sister Anne squeezed her hand; they passed
into the graveyard in silence.

There was no moon; the night was pitch dark. They threaded their way
through the graves, stumbling over them here and there. An owl was
toowhooing from the church tower, a dog was howling somewhere, a cock
began to crow, as they will sometimes at twelve o'clock at night.

"Make haste," said the wizard. "Decide whether you will go on or not."

"Let us go back, sister," said Anne.

"I _will_ go on," said Fatima. "I should die if I gave it up, I feel I
should."

"Here's the gate; kneel down," said the wizard. The women knelt down.

"Will you see your first husband or your second husband?"

"I will see Bluebeard first," said the widow; "I shall know then
whether this be a mockery, or you have the power you pretend to."

At this the wizard uttered an incantation, so frightful, and of such
incomprehensible words, that it is impossible for any mortal man to
repeat them. And at the end of what seemed to be a versicle of his chant
he called Bluebeard. There was no noise but the moaning of the wind in
the trees, and the toowhooing of the owl in the tower.

At the end of the second verse he paused again, and called _Bluebear