THE GHOSTLY TRIBUNAL
"Aren't they just fine? Isn't it just fun?"
These were the enthusiastic questions that Helen Cameron hurled at Ruth
when they returned to their own room. The girl from the Red Mill was
glad that their school life had opened so pleasantly; but she was by no
means blinded--as Helen seemed to be--to the faults of their neighbors
in the room they had just left.
"They have been very friendly and we have no complaint to make, that is
sure, Helen," she said.
"How exasperating you are at times!" exclaimed her chum. "Just the
same, I am glad we didn't go with those poky Fussy Curls to _their_
meeting."
Ruth made no reply to this. The bell in the tower had tolled nine, and
they knew that there were twenty minutes only in which to get ready for
retiring. Those girls who had lights after twenty minutes past nine
were likely to be questioned, and any who burned a lamp after half
after nine would find a demerit against their names in the morning.
The chums hurried, then, to get ready for sleep. "Don't you hope we'll
dream something very nice?" whispered Helen as she plunged into bed
first.
"I hope we will," returned Ruth, waiting to see her comfortable before
she turned out the light and bent over her chum to kiss her.
"Good-night, Helen. I hope we'll be just as good friends here, dear,
as we have been since we met."
"Of course we will, Ruthie!" declared Helen, quite as warmly.
"We will let nobody, or nothing, come between us?" said Ruth, a little
wistfully in the dark.
"Of course not!" declared Helen, with added emphasis.
Then Ruth crept into her own bed and lay looking at the whiter patch of
the nearest window long after Helen's gentle, regular breathing
announced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about the
dormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked
once. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day's doings passed in a not
unpleasant procession through her mind.
It seemed a week--yes! a month--since she had left the Red Mill that
morning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons and
Mrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation with
good Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time would
come when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school--perhaps come to this
very Briarwood Hall.
The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated in
Ruth's mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not fail
to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp
in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these
thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she
suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was
open--the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and
windless night.
The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It was
a faint scratching--at the door, or at the window? She could not tell.
Ruth lay down again; then she sat upright in her bed as the sound
continued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. The
dog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded the
campus. Where was that sound? At the door?
Ruth was not afraid--only curious. If somebody was trying to attract
her attention--if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get into
the room----
She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she was
in her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latched
it when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was there
a rustle and a soft whisper behind the panels?
Suddenly, as the fastening was removed, the door was pushed inward.
Ruth stepped back. Had she been of a very nervous disposition, she
would have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood at
the door.
"Hush!" commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. "Not a word."
Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruth
remained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed;
two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples--girls and
all shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, in
which were cut small "eyes"--within the duet room. Somebody closed the
door. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.
Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellows
meant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such a
startling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she been
asleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figures
gathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyond
expression.
"Don't let her see you first!" gasped Ruth, affrightedly.
Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily opened
her lips to scream, one thrust a ball of clean rags into her mouth,
thrusting it in so far that it effectually gagged her, nor could she
expel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it was
awfully uncomfortable, and being held firmly by her two assailants,
Ruth could do nothing, either in her own behalf, or for Helen.
But she was determined not to cry. These big girls called them
"Infants," and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She
had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would
have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to
Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen
appear just as ridiculous as possible.
Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; for
she was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to either
side of the bed and leaned over Ruth's sleeping chum. The tall, peaked
caps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in a
really unhappy state of mind. All for Helen's sake, too. She had
opened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not done
it!
Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for a
moment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips only
opened to emit a single "Oh!"
"Silence!" commanded one of the figures leaning over the bed, and Ruth,
whose ears were sharpened now, believed that she recognized Mary Cox's
voice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to haze
them were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them that
evening--"The Fox" and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth was
more interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going to
take her sudden awakening.
Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. After
her first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiled
across the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, was
certainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth's
mind: "Did Helen have reason for expecting this visit, and not warn
_me_?"
"Up!" commanded the previous speaker among the white-robed company.
"Your doom awaits you."
Helen put her bare feet out of bed, but was allowed to put her slippers
on. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the air
breathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger of
their getting cold.
The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged as
Ruth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled cry
when she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figures
as the chums stood in their midst. The girl who had previously spoken
(and whom Ruth was quite positive was Mary Cox--for she seemed to be
the leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off the
table and mounted upon it, where she sat cross-legged--like a tailor,
or a Turk.
"Bring the culprits before the throne!" she commanded, in a sepulchral
voice.
Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. The
ball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was held
tightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant's
freedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls would
not attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous,
way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood in
the midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.