Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall Part 12

As Ruth was led past the door of the larger room, which she knew Mary c.o.x and her three chums occupied, she heard the unmistakable snoring of a sound sleeper within. It made her doubt if, after all, those four who had appeared so friendly to Helen and herself that evening, were among the hazers; and she heard one of her guards whisper:

"Miss Picolet never has to look into _that_ room to learn if they're asleep. Listen to Heavy, will you?"

But this puzzlement did not stick in Ruth's mind for long; the guards hustled her down the stairs and the outer door was opened.

"If the cat should suddenly come back, wouldn't we just _catch_ it?"

whispered one girl to the other.

"Now, don't you be forever and ever going to that fountain," said the other to Ruth. "For if you are long, we'll just shut the door on you and run back."

As she spoke she let go of Ruth's arm and jerked the gag out of her mouth. Then the two pushed the new girl out of the door and closed it softly. Ruth could hear them whispering together behind the panels.

Like Helen, she had been given her bath-gown. She was not cold. But it was truth that the memory of her chum's state of mind when she had come back from the visit to the fountain, gave Ruth Fielding an actual chill. Helen had set out upon _her_ venture without much worriment of mind; but she had been badly frightened. Ruth believed this fright had been wickedly planned by the hazing crew of girls; nevertheless she could not help being troubled in her own mind as she looked out into the dimness of the campus.

Not a sound rose from this court between the buildings. A few dim night-lights were visible in the windows about the campus; but the lamps that illumined the walks and the park itself were burned out.

The breeze was so faint that it did not rustle the smallest branches of the trees. There was not a sound from anywhere upon the campus.

Remembering the promise of the two girls who had thrust her out of the house, Ruth thought it best for her to get the unpleasant business over as quickly as possible. Although she could not see the sunken fountain from the steps of the dormitory where she stood, she knew which path to take to get to it the quickest. She started along this path at once, walking until she was surely out of view of the girls in the windows above, and then running to the fountain. She had some objection to giving her new schoolmates the satisfaction of seeing that she was at all frightened by this midnight jaunt.

She sped along the path and there was the statue looming right before her. The trickle of the water, spouting into the basin, made a low and pleasant sound. Nothing moved about the fountain.

"Perhaps, after all, Helen only _imagined_ there was somebody here,"

thought Ruth, and she pattered down the steps in her slippers, and so climbed upon the marble ledge from which she could reach the gilded goblet which was, as Helen had declared, placed between the feet of the marble statue.

And then, suddenly, there was a rustle near at hand. Was that a whisper--a sharp, m.u.f.fled gasp? Ruth was startled, indeed, and shuddered so that the "goose-flesh" seemed to start all over her.

Nevertheless, she clutched the goblet firmly and held it beneath one of the spouts of the fountain. She was convinced that if there was anybody behind the figure of marble, he was there for the express purpose of frightening her--and she was determined not to be frightened.

The goblet was quickly filled and Ruth held it to her lips. She might be watched, and she was determined to obey the mandate of the masked leader of the hazing party. She would not give them the right to say that _she_ was panic-stricken.

And then, with an unexpectedness that held her for an instant spellbound, she heard a hasty hand sweep the taut strings of a harp!

She was directly below the figure and--if the truth must be told--she looked up in horror, expecting to see the marble representation of a harp vibrating under that sudden stroke!

There was no movement, of course, in the marble. There was no further sound about the fountain. But the echo of that crash of music vibrated across the campus and died away hollowly between the buildings. It had been no sound called up by her imagination; the harp had been sounded with a sure and heavy hand.

Ruth Fielding confessed her terror now on the instant. When power of movement returned to her, she leaped from the basin's edge, scurried up the steps to the path, and dashed at top speed for the dormitory, bearing the goblet in one hand and catching up the draperies of her long garment so as not to ensnare her feet.

She reached the building and dashed up the steps. The door was ajar, but the shrouded guards were nowhere visible. She burst into the hall, banged the door after her, and ran up the stairs in blind terror, with no care for anybody, or anything else! Into the room at the end of the corridor she hurried, and found it----

Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing, panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst.

CHAPTER XII

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS

There was some movement downstairs now. Ruth Fielding heard a door open and a voice speak in the lower corridor. Perhaps it was Miss Scrimp, the matron. But every one of the skylarkers had cut to bed, and the dormitories were as still as need be.

"Oh, Ruth!" gasped Helen, from her m.u.f.fling bed clothes. "Did you hear it?"

"Did I hear what?" panted Ruth.

"Oh! I was so frightened. There is something _dreadful_ about that fountain. I heard whisperings and rustlings there; but the harp----"

"They did it to scare us," declared Ruth, in both anger and relief.

She _had_ been badly frightened, but she was getting control of herself now.

"Then they frightened themselves," declared Helen, sitting up in bed.

"You heard the harp?"

"I should say so!"

"We were all at the window listening to hear if you would be frightened and run," whispered Helen. "Oh, Ruthie!"

"What's the matter, now?" demanded her chum.

"I--I tried to help them. It was mean. I knew they were trying to scare you, and I helped them. I wasn't so scared myself as I appeared when I came in."

"WHAT?"

"I don't know what's made me act so mean to you this evening," sobbed Helen. "I'm sure I love you, Ruth. And I know you wouldn't have treated me so. But they said they were just going to have some fun with you----"

"_Who_ said?" demanded Ruth.

"Mary c.o.x--and--and the others."

"They told you they were coming to haze us?"

"The Upedes--ye-es," admitted Helen. "And of course, it wouldn't have amounted to anything if that---- Oh, Ruth! was it truly the harp that sounded?"

"How could that marble harp make any sound?" demanded Ruth, sharply.

"But I know the girls were scared--just as scared as I was. They expected nothing of the kind. And the tw.a.n.g of the strings sounded just as loud as--as--well, as loud as that fat man's playing on the boat sounded. Do you remember?"

Ruth remembered. And suddenly the thought suggested by her frightened chum entered her mind and swelled in it to vast proportions. She could, in fact, think of little else than this new idea. She hushed Helen as best she could. She told her she forgave her--but she said it unfeelingly and more to hush her chum than aught else. She wanted to think out this new train of thought to its logical conclusion.

"Hush and go to sleep, Helen," she advised. "We shall neither of us be fit to get up at rising bell. It is very late. I--I wish those girls had remained in their own rooms, that I do!"

"But there is one thing about it," said Helen, with half a sob and half a chuckle. "They were more frightened than we were when they scuttled out of this room before you returned. Oh! you should have seen them."

Ruth would say no more to her. There had been no light lit in all this time, and now she snuggled down into her own bed. The excitement of the recent happenings did not long keep Helen awake; but her friend and room-mate lay for some time studying out the mystery of the campus.

Miss Picolet was out of her room.

The old Irishman, Tony Foyle, had mentioned chasing itinerant musicians off the grounds that very evening--among them a harpist.

The evil-looking man who played the harp on board the steams.h.i.+p, and who had so frightened little Miss Picolet, had followed the French teacher ash.o.r.e.