CHAPTER IX
THE GHOSTLY TRIBUNAL
"Aren't they just fine? Isn't it just fun?"
These were the enthusiastic questions that Helen Cameron hurled at Ruthwhen they returned to their own room. The girl from the Red Mill wasglad that their school life had opened so pleasantly; but she was by nomeans blinded--as Helen seemed to be--to the faults of their neighborsin the room they had just left.
"They have been very friendly and we have no complaint to make, that issure, Helen," she said.
"How exasperating you are at times!" exclaimed her chum. "Just thesame, 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, andthey knew that there were twenty minutes only in which to get ready forretiring. Those girls who had lights after twenty minutes past ninewere likely to be questioned, and any who burned a lamp after halfafter 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'lldream something very nice?" whispered Helen as she plunged into bedfirst.
"I hope we will," returned Ruth, waiting to see her comfortable beforeshe 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 littlewistfully 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 ofthe nearest window long after Helen's gentle, regular breathingannounced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about thedormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barkedonce. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day's doings passed in a notunpleasant procession through her mind.
It seemed a week--yes! a month--since she had left the Red Mill thatmorning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons andMrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation withgood Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time wouldcome when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school--perhaps come to thisvery Briarwood Hall.
The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated inRuth's mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not failto recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harpin the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while thesethoughts were following in slow procession through her mind shesuddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window wasopen--the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm andwindless night.
The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It wasa 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 soundcontinued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. Thedog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded thecampus. Where was that sound? At the door?
Ruth was not afraid--only curious. If somebody was trying to attracther attention--if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get intothe room----
She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she wasin her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latchedit when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was therea 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, shewould have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood atthe door.
"Hush!" commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. "Not a word."
Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruthremained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed;two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples--girls andall shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, inwhich were cut small "eyes"--within the duet room. Somebody closed thedoor. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.
Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellowsmeant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such astartling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she beenasleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figuresgathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyondexpression.
"Don't let her see you first!" gasped Ruth, affrightedly.
Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily openedher 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 sheexpel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it wasawfully 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. Shehad no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they wouldhave for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers toBriarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helenappear just as ridiculous as possible.
Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; forshe was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to eitherside of the bed and leaned over Ruth's sleeping chum. The tall, peakedcaps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in areally unhappy state of mind. All for Helen's sake, too. She hadopened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not doneit!
Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for amoment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips onlyopened 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'svoice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to hazethem were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them thatevening--"The Fox" and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth wasmore interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going totake her sudden awakening.
Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. Afterher first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiledacross the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, wascertainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth'smind: "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 slipperson. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the airbreathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger oftheir getting cold.
The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged asRuth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled crywhen she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figuresas 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 bethe leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off thetable 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 sepulchralvoice.
Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. Theball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was heldtightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant'sfreedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls wouldnot attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous,way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood inthe midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.