By the time the twins had finished washing the supper dishes, it was dark.  Constance glanced out of the window apprehensively.  She now remembered that eight o’clock was very, very late, and that the barn was a long way from the house!  And up in the haymow, too!  And such a mysterious bloody society!  Her heart quaked within her.  So she approached the twins respectfully, and said in an offhand way: 

“I can go any time now.  Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll go right along with you.”

But the twins stared at her again in an amazing and overbearing fashion, and vouchsafed no reply.  Connie, however, determined to keep a watchful eye upon them, and when they started barnward, she would trail closely along in their rear.  It was a quarter to eight, and fearfully dark, when she suddenly remembered that they had been up-stairs an unnaturally long time.  She rushed up in a panic.  They were not there.  She ran through the house.  They were not to be found.  The dreadful truth overwhelmed her,—­the twins were already in the haymow, the hour had come, and she must go forth.

Breathlessly, she slipped out of the back door, and closed it softly behind her.  She could not distinguish the dark outlines of the barn in the equal darkness of the autumn night.  She gave a long sobbing gasp as she groped her way forward.  As she neared the barn, she was startled to hear from the haymow over her head, deep groans as of a soul in mortal agony.  Something had happened to the twins!

“Girls!  Girls!” she cried, forgetting for the moment her own sorry state.  “What is the matter?  Twins!”

Sepulchral silence!  And Connie knew that this was the dreadful Skull and Bones.  Her teeth chattered as she stood there, irresolute in the intense and throbbing darkness.

“It’s only the twins,” she assured herself over and over, and began fumbling with the latch of the barn door,—­but her fingers were stiff and cold.  Suddenly from directly above her, there came the hideous clanking of iron chains.  Connie had read ghost stories, and she knew the significance of clanking chains, but she stood her ground in spite of the almost irresistible impulse to fly.  After the clanking, the loud and clamorous peal of a bell rang out.

“It’s that old cow bell they found in the field,” she whispered practically, but found it none the less horrifying.

Finally she stepped into the blackness of the barn, found the ladder leading to the haymow and began slowly climbing.  But her own weight seemed a tremendous thing, and she had difficulty in raising herself from step to step.  She comforted herself with the reflection that at the top were the twins,—­company and triumph hand in hand.  But when she reached the top, and peered around her, she found little comfort,—­and no desirable company?

A small barrel draped in black stood in the center of the mow, and on it a lighted candle gave out a feeble flickering ray which emphasized the darkness around it.  On either side of the black-draped barrel stood a motionless figure, clothed in somber black.  On the head of one was a skull,—­not a really skull, just a pasteboard imitation, but it was just as awful to Connie.  On the head of the other were crossbones.