Helen pinched Ruth’s arm.
It was plain that her guards did not hold Helen as
tightly as they did Ruth. And why was that?
Ruth thought. Could it be possible that her chum
had had warning of this midnight visitation?
Not that Ruth felt very much fear
of the outcome of the exercises; but the possibility
that her old friend had kept any secret knowledge of
the raid from her troubled Ruth immensely. Since
they had come among the girls of Briarwood Hall and
that so few hours before Ruth felt that
she and Helen were not so close together. There
was danger of their drifting apart, and the possibility
troubled Ruth Fielding exceedingly.
The thought of it now, however, was
but momentary. Naturally she was vitally interested
in what was about to be done to her by the party of
hazers.
“I am pained,” said the
girl sitting on the table, “that one of the
neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than
she can swallow. If she understands fully that
a single word above a whisper or any word
at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters will
be punished by her being instantly corked up again,
the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte?
Nod once!”
Ruth, glad to get rid of the unpleasant
mouthful on any terms, nodded vigorously. Immediately
her captors let go of her arms and one of them pulled
the “stopper” out of her mouth.
“Now, remember!” uttered
the girl on the table, warningly. “A word
aloud and the plug goes back.” Helen giggled
again, but Ruth didn’t feel like laughing herself.
“Now, culprits!” continued the leader
of the hazing party, “you must be judged for
your temerity. How dared you come to
Briarwood Hall, Infants?”
“Please, Ma’am,”
whispered Helen, who seemed to think the whole affair
a great lark, “our guardians sent us here.
We are not responsible.”
“You may not so easily escape
responsibility for your acts,” hissed the girl
on the table. “Those who enter Briarwood
Hall must show themselves worthy of the high honor.
It takes courage to come under the eye of Mrs. Tellingham;
it takes supernatural courage to come under the eye
of Picolet!”
“If she wasn’t out of
the house to-night you may believe we wouldn’t
be out of bed,” murmured another of the midnight
visitors, whom Ruth was quite sure was Belle Tingley.
“And I hope you made no mistake
about that, Miss!” snapped the girl on
the table. “You went to her door.”
“And knocked, and asked for
toothache drops,” giggled another of the shrouded
figures.
“And she wasn’t there.
I pushed the door open,” muttered the other
girl. “I know she went out. I heard
the door open and shut half an hour before.”
“She’s a sly one, she
is,” declared the girl on the table. “But,
enough of Picolet. It is these small infants
we have to judge; not that old cat. We say they
have shown temerity in coming to Briarwood is
it not so, friends and fellow members ahem!
is it not so?”
There was a responsive giggle from
the shrouded figures about the room.
“Then punishment must be the
portion of these Infants,” declared the foremost
hazer. “They claim that they were sent
here against their will and that it was not reckless
bravery that brought them to these scholastic halls.
Let them prove their courage then what
say the Sisters?”
The Sisters giggled a good deal, but
the majority seemed to be of the opinion that proof
of the Infants’ courage should be exacted.
“Then let the Golden Goblet
be brought,” commanded the leader, her voice
still carefully lowered, for even if Miss Picolet was
out of the dormitory, Miss Scrimp, the matron, was
asleep in her own room, likewise on the lower floor
of the building. Somebody produced a vase which
had evidently been covered with bright gold-foil for
the occasion. “Here,” said the leader,
holding the vase out to Helen. “Take this
Golden Goblet and fill it at the fountain on the campus.
You will be taken down to the door by the guards, who
will await your return and will bring you back again.
And remember! Silence!”
The lights all around the campus had
gone out ere this. There was no moon, and although
it was a clear night, with countless stars in the
heavens, it seemed dark and lonely indeed down there
under the trees between the school buildings.
“Do not hesitate, Infant!”
commanded the leader of the hazing party. “Nor
shall you think to befool us, Miss! Take the
Golden Goblet, and fill and drink at the fountain.
But leave the goblet there, that we may know you
have accomplished the task set you!”
This was said most solemnly; but the
solemnity would not have bothered Helen Cameron at
all, had the task been given to somebody else!
The thought of venturing out there in the dark on
the campus rather quelled her propensity for giggling.
But there seemed to be no way of begging
off from the trial. Helen cast a look of pleading
at her chum; but what could Ruth do? She was
surprised that the task had not been given to her instead;
she believed that these girls were really more friendly
in feeling toward Helen than toward herself.
At least, it was Mary Cox on the table, and Mary Cox
had shown Helen much more attention than she had Ruth.
Two of the sheeted visitors seized
Helen again and led her softly out of the room.
A sentinel had been left in the corridor, and the
word was whispered that all was silent in the house;
Miss Scrimp was known to be a heavy sleeper, and the
French teacher was certainly absent from her room.
The girls led Helen downstairs and
to the outer door. This opened with a spring
lock. The guards whispered that they would remain
to await her return, and the new girl was pushed out
of doors, with nothing over her nightgown but a wrapper,
and only slippers on her feet.
Although there was little breeze now,
it was not cold. But it was dark under the trees.
Ruth, who could look out of the windows above, wondered
how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the
center of the campus with that vase, and leave it
at the foot of the figure surmounting the fountain,
was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.
The minutes passed slowly, the girls
in their shrouds whispering among themselves.
Suddenly there came a sound from outside a
pattering of running feet on the cement walk.
Ruth sprang to the nearest window in spite of the
commands of the hazing party. Helen was running
toward the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation.
Besides, Ruth could hear her sobbing under her breath:
“Oh, oh, oh!”
“You’ve scared her half
to death!” exclaimed Ruth, angrily, as the girls
seized her.
“Put in the stopper!”
commanded the girl who had seated herself on the table,
and instantly the ball of rags was driven into Ruth’s
mouth again and she was held, in spite of her struggles,
by her captors.
Ruth was angry now. Helen had
been tricked into going to the fountain, and by some
means the hazers had frightened her on her journey.
But it was a couple of minutes before her chum was
brought back to the room. Helen was shivering
and sobbing between the guards indeed they
held her up, for she would have fallen.
“What’s the matter with
the great booby?” demanded the girl on the table.
“She she says she
heard something, or saw something, at the fountain,”
said one of the other girls, in a quavering voice.
“Of course she did they
always do,” declared the leader. “Isn’t
the fountain haunted? We know it is so.”
This was all said for effect, and
to impress her, Ruth knew. But she tried
to go to Helen. They held her back, however,
and she could not speak.
“Did the Neophyte go to the
fountain?” demanded the leader, sternly.
Helen, in spite of her tears, nodded vigorously.
“Did she drink of the water there?”
“I I was drinking it when I I
heard somebody ”
“The ghost of the very beautiful
woman whose statue adorns the fountain,” declared
Mary Cox, if it were she, in a sepulchral voice.
Ruth knew now why the story of the
fountain had been told them earlier in the evening,
but personally she had not been much impressed by it
then, nor was she frightened now. She was only
indignant that Helen and she should be treated so and
by these very girls for whom her chum had conceived
such a fancy.
Helen was still trembling. They
let her sit down upon her bed, and Ruth wanted to
go to her more than ever, and comfort her. But
the girl on the table brought her up short.
“Now, Miss!” she exclaimed.
“You are the next. The first Infant has
left the Golden Goblet at the fountain you
did leave it there; didn’t you, you ’fraid-cat?”
she demanded sharply, of Helen. Helen bobbed
her head and sobbed. “Then,” said
the leader of the hazing party, “you go and
bring it here.”
Ruth stared at her in surprise. She did not
move.
“Take out her gag. Lead
her to the door. If she does not come back with
the Golden Goblet, lock her out and let her cool her
temper till morning on the grass,” said the
girl on the table, cruelly. “And if she
stirs up trouble, she’ll wish she had never come
to Briarwood!”