“Yes sir.”

“What did it say?”

“‘Halt!’ it shouted, and on the instant my horse stopped, and would not budge an inch. ‘Halt!’ it said, in awful tones, glaring down on me with its fiery eyes. ‘I am one of the Skeleton Crew,’ it said; ‘go, tell your master that Farmer Bertram is murdered!’”

“Dead?” “Murdered?” said several in surprise.

“When did this foul deed take place?” asked the old knight.

“‘Murdered last night,’ said the Red Man from the gibbet, ‘as the Darlington village clock tolled the hour of one! Ha! ha! the Skeleton Crew still lives, and rules the seas, and will long defy the power of man. Fly from this spot, or become one of the dead!’”

“This is a most horrible revelation,” said the old knight.

“I did not stop to hear more, for I shouted with fright, and galloped madly away, feeling as if frozen to the very marrow, for I had spoken with the dead!”

Tiny Tim looked exhausted, and shivered in every limb.

He could not proceed with his story very quickly, for his teeth chattered again.

“Give the lad a stiff glass of brandy, Ned,” said the kind-hearted knight.

Ned did so; a very “stiff” one indeed, it was, which made the groom’s eyes twinkle again.

The one-legged sailor was treated in like manner, when Tim continued—

“I galloped along till I reached the edge of the wild and barren heath, but then I felt faint, for I perceived another horrid sight in the distance! I was compelled to cross the heath, for it was my only way here to the Hall. Unable to guide my horse, I sat still shivering in the cold, knowing not what to do, when all of a sudden the one-legged sailor seemed to spring out of the earth close beside me.

“The next moment I found him sitting on the horse beside me!

“He took the reins, and the mare dashed onwards like lightning, as if neither of us were heavier than two straws.

“All I remember is that as we galloped along we came up to three fires on the roadside which burned with a dark blue flame, and around them were, shrieking and 

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