The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House
answer to her exclamation. "She found a costume for him this afternoon,
and she's down in the kitchen now, getting him ready."
Nyoda breathed a sigh of gratitude for Migwan's habitual thoughtfulness,
and went in to don her own costume.
Down in the kitchen Migwan was getting Hercules into the suit she had
picked out for him from the trunkfull of masquerade costumes she had
found up in the attic. It was a long monkish habit with a cowl, made of
coarse brown stuff, and it covered him from head to foot. The mask was
made of the same material as the suit, and hung down at least a foot
below his grizzly beard.
"Sure nobody ain't goin' ter recognize me?" Hercules asked anxiously.
Migwan's prediction that an invitation to the party would cheer him up
had been fulfilled from the first. Hercules was so tickled that he forgot
his misery entirely. He was in as much of a flutter as a young girl
getting ready for her first ball; he had been in the house half a dozen
times that day anxiously inquiring if the party were surely going to be,
and if there would be a suit for him.
Migwan put in the last essential pin, and then stepped back to survey the
result of her efforts. "If you keep your feet underneath the gown, not a
soul will know you," she assured him. She had thoughtfully provided a
pair of gloves, so that even if he did put out his hands their color
could not betray him.
"Of course, you must not talk," she warned him further.
"Course not, course not," he agreed. "When's all dese here mask comin'
off?" he continued.
"When the clock strikes eleven we'll all unmask," explained Migwan, "and
then the Princess is going to give the prize to the one that had the best
costume."
"An' dey's nobody 'xcept me an' you knows I'm wearin' dis suit?" he
inquired for the third time.
Migwan reassured him, and with a final injunction not to show himself in
the front part of the house until he heard the dinner gong, she sped up
the back stairs to her own belated masking.
She had barely finished when the sound of the gong rose through the
house, and the stairway was filled with a grotesquely garbed throng
making its way, with stifled exclamations and smothered bursts of
laughter, into the long drawing room where the Princess sat. Migwan
clapped on her mask and sped down after them, getting there just as the
fun commenced. She spied Hercules standing in the corner behind the
Princess's throne, maintaining a religious silence and keeping his feet
carefully out of sight. She kept away from him, fearing that he would
forget himself and speak to her, entirely forgetting that he could not
recognize her under her disguise.
Sylvia shrieked with amusement at the grotesque figures circling around
her. It was the very first masque party she had ever seen, and she could
not get over the wonder of it. Nyoda smiled mistily behind her mask as
she watched her. How lonely that valiant little spirit must have been all
these years, shut away from the frolics of youth; lonely in spite of the
brave make believe with which she passed away the time! And now the years
stretched out before her in endless sameness; the poor little princess
would never leave her throne.
Sherry and Justice and the Captain kept Nyoda guessing as to which one
was which, but she soon picked out the one she knew must be Hercules, and
watched him in amusement. She had rather fancied that he would turn out
to be the clown of the party, but he sat still most of the time and kept
his eyes on the Princess. He seemed utterly fascinated by the glitter of
her costume. Even the Punch and Judy show going on in the other end of
the room failed to hold his attention, although the rest of the
spectators were in convulsions of mirth.
The Princess called on Punch and Judy to do their stunt over and over
again until they were too hoarse to utter another sound. Migwan, who had
been Judy, fled to the kitchen for a drink of water to relieve her aching
throat. She took the opportunity to slip off the hot mask for a moment
and get a breath of fresh air. She was almost suffocated behind the mask.
Then, while she stood there cooling off, she remembered the big pan of
candy Gladys had set outdoors to harden, and hastened out to bring it in.
Someone was walking across the yard, and as Migwan looked up, startled,
the light which streamed out of the kitchen door fell full upon the black
face of Hercules. Migwan stood still, clutching the pan of candy
mechanically, her eyes wide open with surprise. Hercules stood still too,
and stood staring at her with an expression of dismay. He no longer had
the monk's costume on.
"How did you get out here?" Migwan asked curiously. "You're inside--at
the party."
Hercules laughed nervously, and Migwan noticed that his jaw was
trembling.
"What's the matter, Hercules?" she asked. "What's happened?"
"Now, missy, missy--" began Hercules, and Migwan could hear his teeth
chatter, while his eyes began to roll strangely in his head.
"What's the matter, are you sick?" asked Migwan in alarm.
"Yes'm, dat's it, dat's it," chattered Hercules, finding his voice. "I'm
awful sick. I had to come outside."
"But I left you sitting in there a minute ago with your suit on," said
Migwan wonderingly, "and you didn't come out after me. Did you go out of
the front door?"
"Yes'm, dat's it," said Hercules hastily. "I come out de front doah an'
roun' dat way."
A sudden impulse made Migwan look down the drive, covered with a light
fall of snow and gleaming white in the glare of the street light.
"But there aren't any footprints in the snow," she said in surprise.
"Your footprints are coming from the barn." A nameless uneasiness filled
her. What was Hercules doing out here?
"Yes'm," repeated Hercules vacuously, "I came from de barn."
Migwan stared at him in surprise. Was he out of his mind?
"Hercules," she began severely, but never finished the sentence, for the
old man swayed, clutched at the empty air, and fell heavily in the snow
at her feet.
CHAPTER XIV
AN UNINVITED GUEST
Migwan ran into the house and burst breathlessly in upon the merrymakers.
"Nyoda!" she cried in a frightened voice, "Hercules is--" Then she
stopped as though she had seen a ghost, for there sat Hercules in his
monk's costume, just as he had been all evening!
"What's the matter?" asked Nyoda in alarm, seeing her pale face and
staring eyes.
Migwan clutched her convulsively. "There's a man outside," she panted,
"that looks just like Hercules, and when I spoke to him he fell down on
the ground!"
In an instant all was pandemonium. Everybody rushed for the kitchen door
and ran out into the yard, where the figure of a man lay dark upon the
snow. Sherry tore off his mask and flung it away, and bending over the
prostrate man turned his flashlight full on his face.
"It _is_ Hercules!" he exclaimed in astonishment.
"Is he dead?" faltered Migwan.
"No, he's breathing, but he's unconscious," said Sherry. "It's his heart,
I suppose. He's been having spells with it lately. Run into the house,
somebody, and get that leather covered flask in the medicine chest."
Justice raced in for the flask and Sherry raised Hercules' head from the
ground and poured some of the brandy between his lips. In a few minutes
the old man began to stir and mutter, and Nyoda, holding his wrist, felt
his pulse come up. They carried him to his room in the stable and laid
him down on his bed, and Nyoda found the heart drops which Hercules had
been taking for some time.
"But where is the one I thought was Hercules--the one with the monk's
suit on?" cried Migwan, after the first fright about Hercules had
subsided.
Sherry and the boys looked at one another dumfounded. None of them had
known, as Migwan did, that the brown robe and cowl presumably covered
Hercules. They looked about for the brown figure that had moved so
unobtrusively amongst them that evening. It had vanished.
"He's gone!" shouted Sherry excitedly. "There's something queer going on
here."
The monk was certainly not in the house any longer, and there were no
footprints in the snow outside the house.
"Did he fly away?" asked Sherry in perplexity.
Justice jumped up with a great exclamation. "The secret passage!" he
shouted, "he's gone down the secret passage!"
They flew back inside the house to the stair landing, half expecting to
find it standing open, but it was closed and looked perfectly natural.
Sherry grasped the post, the landing slid out and the four went down the
ladder. Justice gave a triumphant exclamation when he reached the bottom.
"The barricades are taken down! He did come this way!"
They hurried through the door into the passage, half expecting to see a
figure flying along ahead of them, but the passage was empty and no sound
of a footfall broke the silence. They searched the place thoroughly, but
nowhere did they find their man hidden. Behind the chest in the cave,
however, Justice pounced upon something with a shout. It was the long
brown costume that had been worn by the monk at the party.
CHAPTER XV
HERCULES' STORY
When Sherry and the boys returned from their fruitless chase Hercules had
regained consciousness, and was telling Nyoda in a shaking voice that he
felt better, but he was still too weak to sit up.
"Mah time's come, Mis' 'Lizbeth," he said mournfully. "I'se a goner."
"Nonsense," said Nyoda brightly. "You'll be up and around in the morning.
The doctor that gave you this medicine said you'd have these spells once
in a while, but the heart drops would always bring you round all right."
"I'se a-goin' dis time," he repeated. "I'se had a token. Dreamed about
runnin' water las' night, an' dat's a sure sign. _Ain't_ no surer sign
den dat anywhere, Mis' 'Lizbeth."
"Nonsense," said Nyoda again. "You shouldn't believe in signs. Tell us
what happened to-night and that'll make you feel better."
"Mis' 'Lizbeth," said the old man solemnly, "I'se goin' ter tell de whole
thing. I wasn't goin' ter say nothin' a-tall, but gon' ter die, like I
am, I'se skeered ter go an' not tell you-all."
He took a sip from the tumbler at his hand and cleared his throat.
"Mis' 'Lizbeth," he began, "dat weren't no burglar dat git inter de house
dat night. You jus' lissen till I tell you de whole bizness. Dat day
you-all find dem footprints on de stairs I mos' had a fit, 'case I knowed
somebody'd got in th'u de secrut passidge."
"But you said you didn't know anything about a secret passage," said
Nyoda, in surprise.
"Mis' 'Lizbeth," said Hercules deprecatingly, evidently urged on to open
confession by the knowledge that death had him by the coat tail, "I
_said_ dat, but it weren't true. Ole Marse Jasper, he say once if I ever
tell about dat secrut passidge de debbel'd come in th'u it an' carry me
off, an' I'se bin skeered even ter say secrut passidge.
"Dere weren't nobody livin' dat knew about dat secrut passidge, an' when
I sees dem footprints I reckons it mus' be de debbel himself. But
yestidday I sees a man hangin' roun' behin' de barn, an' I axs him what
he wants, an' he sticks up two fingers an' makes a sign dat I uster know
yeahs ago. I looks at de man agin, an' I says, 'Foh de Lawd, am de dead
come ter life?' 'Case it's Marse Jasper's ole frien', Tad Phillips."
A sharp exclamation of astonishment went around the circle of listeners.
"He's an ole man, an' his hair's nearly white, but I see it were Marse
Tad, all right.
"'I hearn you-all was dead,' I says ter him, but Marse Tad, he say no,
people all thought he's dead an' he let 'em think so, 'case he cain't
never meet up wif his ole frien's no more. You see, Mis' 'Lizbeth," he