Part 58

"Yassir. I was jest finishin' another hunk of po'k-chops dat I forgot an' put in my pocket. Won't you have a bite?"

"No. I want to eat up something worse than pork to-night," and Jarvis swung into the saddle with the lithe skill acquired from childhood days on the backs of Blue-Grass thoroughbreds.

"What was dat gun-play, Marse Warren?" asked Rusty, after he had calculated that they had ridden a respectful distance for inquiries. Rusty had a certain inherited pride!

Jarvis laughed, and the dull glow of his cigarette tip was discernible.

"Oh, Rusty, why worry over history? Leave that sort of thing to these 'spigotties'--that's all they have to think about over here. It was just a question of being 'pinked' or 'pinking' a certain gentleman who was working beyond union hours."

"Huh!" snorted Rusty. "I'll bet de razor I has in my jeans dat he was moh red dan pink when you-all got finished wid dat cannon o' yourn, Marse Warren. It runs in de fambly ter shoot straight!"

"Well, Rusty, let's ride straight for a while. We must go up this road to the turn."

They passed dark cottages, and finally reached the fateful angle of the road. Rusty groaned apprehensively.

"Say, Marse Warren, I wouldn't mind dis all in de meanest moonshine district in Kaintuck, but I don't like for to ride in dis yere foreign district. W'y didn't you-all pick out some place w'ere dey speaks human talk, instead of dis on-Christian lingo? It don't seem releegious to me, Marse Warren."

"Rusty, I'm beginning to think you've got a yellow streak in you, with all this talk about objections. You used to have a name for not even being afraid of your weight in wildcats," said Warren.

Rusty nodded, as he clung tightly to the saddle, on the increasingly rough trail.

"Marse Warren, dat was right. But wildcats is purty heavy, an' you-all can hit 'em with a shotgun. De trouble wid ghosts is dat dey don't weigh nuffin!"

"Lookout, Rusty. Here's a brook," and suddenly Jarvis' horse stumbled to its feet, after sliding down a sharp declivity which had been hidden by the shadows of the big moonlit trees. Rusty was not so fortunate,--he was rolled off despite his efforts, to receive a ducking.

Then did his teeth have reason to chatter, as he mounted again to follow his master up the declivity with dripping clothes.

"Whaffor dey want a crick like dat just below de doors of a castle, Marse Warren?" he complained.

"That's how they got their water supply--I wouldn't be surprised if the old place weren't built right on top of that spring. You know when this place was built they didn't have any faucets or taps in these old places.--Except on the heads!"

They mounted higher, ever higher, swinging on their saddlebows the unlighted, antique lanterns. Rusty was unmistakably becoming more and more nervous.

The road took a sharp turn to the right now, and they clattered over the wooden bridge of the moat.

They faced the great doorway of the old castle now. In the moonlight it was an eerie sight indeed. The castle stood on a broad rocky shelf. A cold wind swept over the mountain top, rattling the naked branches near by the dismal walls.

"Ooooh!"

"What's that?" grunted Rusty in terror.

"Just the wind trying to get out through those barred windows up there, you fool."

"Laws-a-massy, I don't blame it fer gittin' out. I wish I wasn't goin' in."

A lone cloud took this occasion to cover the moon, and the shadow darkened the outlines of the sinister structure. The castle, so Warren had judged on his trip up the hill, must have been built in the period of the Spanish Moors. Later, perhaps when the Moors had been driven out of the country, two dismal wings, several towers and turrets had been added, reminding one of the castles on the Rhine cliffs.

The face of the structure, which Jarvis scanned quickly, was about two hundred feet long and maybe sixty feet high--with two stanch square towers at either end.

Thin slits in the walls and two round windows high up appeared to the mind of the Kentuckian (humorous in the face of the unknown danger) as "architectural bungholes." On either side of the great arched door jutted a turret, slit with many smaller openings and possessing castellated tops.

As they rumbled over the planking of the open drawbridge Rusty's chattering teeth were audible to the rider close at his side, and Jarvis muttered angrily, drawing up his horse by the gate which led to the inner courtyard.

"If you're still too much of a coward to go on, you can ride back, Rusty. This is the first time you've ever failed me in a time of danger."