“Among two hundred girls there
are bound to be girls of a good many different kinds.”
So had said Mrs. Tellingham when Ruth Fielding and
her chum presented themselves before the Preceptress
not many hours before. And Ruth saw plainly
that some of these shrouded and masked figures, at
least, were of the kind against whom Mrs. Tellingham
had quietly warned them. These were not alone
careless and thoughtless, however; but the girl whom
Ruth believed to be Mary Cox, their whilom friend
and guide, was cruel likewise.
Ruth Fielding was no coward.
She believed these girls had arranged to terrify
their victims by some manifestation at the fountain why,
otherwise, had they sent Helen there and now were determined
to make Ruth repeat the experience? Nor was
it necessary for the leader of the crew of hazers
to remind the girl from the Red Mill how unpleasant
they could make it for her if the dared report them
to the teachers.
“Now, First Neophyte!”
exclaimed the leader of their visitors. “Where
did you leave the Golden Goblet?”
“On the pedestal, right between
the feet of the figure,” sobbed Helen.
“You hear?” repeated the
other, turning her shrouded face to Ruth. “Then
go, drink likewise of the fountain, and bring back
the goblet. Failure to perform this task will
be punished not only in the present, but in the future.
Take her away and remember your orders,
guards.”
The door was opened ever so quietly
and the sentinel outside assured them that nobody
had stirred. All had been so far conducted so
carefully that even the other girls not in the plot
were not awakened. As Ruth was led past the door
of the larger room, which she knew Mary Cox 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, muffled 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.