Rattle of Bones | Page 2

corridor. They entered.
It was furnished like the rest, except that the door was provided with a
small barred opening, and fastened from the outside with a heavy bolt,
which was secured at one end to the door-jamb. They raised the bolt
and looked in.
"There should be an outer window, but there is not," muttered Kane.
"Look!"
The floor was stained darkly. The walls and the one bunk were hacked
in places, great splinters having been torn away.
"Men have died in here," said Kane, somberly. "Is yonder not a bar
fixed in the wall?"
"Aye, but 'tis made fast," said the Frenchman, tugging at it. "The--"
A section of the wall swung back and Gaston gave a quick exclamation.
A small, secret room was revealed, and the two men bent over the
grisly thing that lay upon its floor.
"The skeleton of a man!" said Gaston. "And behold, how his bony leg
is shackled to the floor! He was imprisoned here and died."
"Nay," said Kane, "the skull is cleft--methinks mine host had a grim
reason for the name of his hellish tavern. This man, like us, was no
doubt a wanderer who fell into the fiend's hands."
"Likely," said Gaston without interest; he was engaged in idly working
the great iron ring from the skeleton's leg bones. Failing in this, he
drew his sword and with an exhibition of remarkable strength cut the
chain which joined the ring on the leg to a ring set deep in the log floor.
"Why should he shackle a skeleton to the floor?" mused the Frenchman.
"Monbleu! 'Tis a waste of good chain. Now, m'sieu," he ironically

addressed the white heap of bones, "I have freed you and you may go
where you like!"
"Have done!" Kane's voice was deep. "No good will come of mocking
the dead."
"The dead should defend themselves," laughed l'Armon. "Somehow, I
will slay the man who kills me, though my corpse climb up forty
fathoms of ocean to do it."
Kane turned toward the outer door, closing the door of the secret room
behind him. He liked not this talk which smacked of demonry and
witchcraft; and he was in haste to face the host with the charge of his
guilt.
As he turned, with his back to the Frenchman, he felt the touch of cold
steel against his neck and knew that a pistol muzzle was pressed close
beneath the base of his brain.
"Move not, m'sieu!" The voice was low and silky. "Move not, or I will
scatter your few brains over the room."
The Puritan, raging inwardly, stood with his hands in air while l'Armon
slipped his pistols and sword from their sheaths.
"Now you can turn," said Gaston, stepping back.
Kane bent a grim eye on the dapper fellow, who stood bareheaded now,
hat in one hand, the other hand leveling his long pistol.
"Gaston the Butcher!" said the Englishman somberly. "Fool that I was
to trust a Frenchman! You range far, murderer! I remember you now,
with that cursed great hat off--I saw you in Calais some years agone."
"Aye--and now you will see me never again. What was that?"
"Rats exploring yon skeleton," said Kane, watching the bandit like a
hawk, waiting for a single slight wavering of that black gun muzzle.
"The sound was of the rattle of bones."

"Like enough," returned the other. "Now, M'sieu Kane, I know you
carry considerable money on your person. I had thought to wait until
you slept and then slay you, but the opportunity presented itself and I
took it. You trick easily."
"I had little thought that I should fear a man with whom I had broken
bread," said Kane, a deep timbre of slow fury sounding in his voice.
The bandit laughed cynically. His eyes narrowed as he began to back
slowly toward the outer door. Kane's sinews tensed involuntarily; he
gathered himself like a giant wolf about to launch himself in a death
leap, but Gaston's hand was like a rock and the pistol never trembled.
"We will have no death plunges after the shot," said Gaston. "Stand still,
m'sieu; I have seen men killed by dying men, and I wish to have
distance enough between us to preclude that possibility. My faith--I
will shoot, you will roar and charge, but you will die before you reach
me with your bare hands. And mine host will have another skeleton in
his secret niche. That is, if I do not kill him myself. The fool knows me
not nor I him, moreover--"
The Frenchman was in the doorway now, sighting along the barrel. The
candle, which had been stuck in a niche on the wall, shed a weird and
flickering light which did not extend past the doorway. And with the