door and one after another entering and crossing the bare floor on tiptoe.  Hundreds were coming in, it seemed to me.  Suddenly a deep silence fell in that dark place of evil.  The blindfold went whisking off my head as if a ghostly hand had taken it.  But all around me was the darkness of the pit.  I could see and I could hear nothing but a faint whisper, high above me, like that of pine boughs moving softly in a light breeze.  I could feel the air upon my face.  I thought I must have been moved out of doors by some magic.  It seemed as if I were sitting under trees alone.  Out of the black silence an icy hand fell suddenly upon my brow.  I flinched, feeling it move slowly downward over my shoulder.  I could hear no breathing, no rustle of garments near me.  In that dead silence I got a feeling that the hand touching me had no body behind it.  I was beyond the reach of fear—­I was in a way prepared for anything but the deep, heart-shaking horror that sank under the cold, damp touch of those fingers.  They laid hold of my elbow firmly, lifting as if to indicate that I was to rise.  I did so, moving forward passively as it drew me on.  To my astonishment I was unable to hear my own footfall or that of my conductor.  I thought we were walking upon soft earth.  Crossing our path in front of me I could see, in the darkness, a gleaming line.  We moved slowly, standing still as our toes covered it.  Then suddenly a light flashed from before and below us.  A cold sweat came out upon me; I staggered back to strong hands that were laid upon my shoulders, forcing me to the line again.  By that flash of light I could see that I was standing on the very brink of some black abyss—­indeed, my toes had crossed the edge of it.  The light came again, flickering and then settling into a steady glow.  The opening seemed to have a grassy bottom some ten feet below.  In front of me the soil bristled, on that lower level, with some black and pointed plant:  there was at least a score of them.  As I looked, I saw they were not plants, but a square of bayonets thrust, points up, in the ground.  A curse came out of my hot mouth, and then a dozen voices mocked it, going fainter, like a dying echo.  I heard a whisper in my ear.  A tall figure in a winding-sheet, its face covered, was leaning over me.

“To hesitate is to die,” it whispered.  “Courage may save you.”

Then a skeleton hand came out of the winding-sheet, pointing down at the square of bristling bayonets.  The figure put its mouth to my ear.

“Jump!” it whispered, and the bare bones of the dead fingers stirred impatiently.