Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore Part 24

The hood of the voluminous soft black cape which Ronny was wearing was slightly frilled. She had cunningly adjusted it so as to give her masked features an entirely different effect from that of an ordinary domino and mask. A moment's calm inspection would have a.s.sured the hazing party that the uncanny visitant was as human as themselves. Her spectacular entrance coupled with the one domino's fear-stricken alarm, had produced upon the hazers the precise effect Ronny had expected to produce. Too greatly startled to take action, a wild, long-drawn, piercing wailing next set in which was not quieting to the nerves. Nor had it ceased when a second eerie voice took it up in a higher key.

By the dim flare of the one remaining lighted candle, the flapping, swaying shape and its hideous moaning whistle became invested with fresh dread, augmented as it was by that volume of ear-piercing echoing sound.

Suddenly the last candle winked out, leaving the dismayed avengers in Stygian darkness. Their sharp cries and frightened exclamations were summarily drowned, however, by a new pandemonium of blood-curdling shrieks and groans which proceeded from the hall. Through the half open door leading into the hall came a menacing shuffle as of countless approaching feet. It was the final touch needed to demoralize the hazers. Forgetful of the two front windows, they bolted with one accord for the door opening into the hall, as nearly as each could locate it in the dark. Had a real enemy been present the hazers would have run straight into the arms of the hostile force. Their one idea was to get out of the house with all speed. As it was they showed a temerity born of panic.

In the midst of the hub-bub, Marjorie had experienced nothing more than a faint stirring of alarm at sight of the bat-like apparition. She knew Ronny instantly, and, guessing her purpose, prudently drew far back into the corner.

"Come with me." Marjorie now felt the joy of a familiar arm across her shoulders. "The window. I just opened it. Quick," breathed Ronny. "I'll steer you to it. We must get away before they open the front door. It's locked and they will have their own troubles unlocking it in the dark."

In a flash the two had crossed the room to the open window. The moment she had extinguished the last candle Ronny had flitted to the window and raised it under cover of the stampede. Through the fish net which enveloped her Marjorie could see a little, in spite of the shadow cast by the veranda.

"Can you use your arms enough through that net to help swing yourself over the sill? It is very low."

"I can manage," Marjorie softly rea.s.sured.

Standing behind her, Ronny gave her chum such a.s.sistance as she could while Marjorie essayed a swift exit from the room which had lately prisoned her. The instant she found footing on the veranda, Ronny followed her. Catching Marjorie by the arm she said: "Run for the back of the house. I forgot to tell the girls where to meet us. I think they will wait for us there."

A few running steps brought them to the rear of the house. A little group of dark figures hurried forward to meet them. The six girls had got away from the house without trouble.

"All's well," Ronny was smiling in the darkness out of sheer satisfaction. "Let's go at once. We had better cross the next three back yards and come out to the street from between them. Hurry. We haven't a second to lose. We ought not talk until we are on the campus again."

Silently, and with all speed, the elated fugitives put Ronny's advice into practice. Once in the street they proceeded north, putting distance between them and the Sans' rendezvous. It was a trifle farther to the campus by the way they took, but none of them minded that. All were too full of elation over the success of their adventure to think of much else.

"The campus at last!" exclaimed Leila as the rescue party reached the gateway. "Let us stop just inside the gate and untie Beauty. She looks like a veiled Oriental in that rigging." Suiting the action to the word she began on the hard knot at Marjorie's back. "While I work, keep a sharp lookout for the other crowd," she directed. "This knot is no simple affair. What time is it, Luciferous?"

"Fifteen minutes past nine." Lucy held her wrist so that the rays of the arc light over the gate fell directly upon her watch.

"Untied; thank my stars! Some knot!" Leila flipped the undesired net from Marjorie. Rolling it up she tucked it under her arm. "Unmasking is at nine-thirty. Let us be there. We can just make it, and it will puzzle some persons to tell who interrupted them tonight. Our talk will wait until after unmasking. Then we can dodge into one of the side rooms and have it out."

"A fine plan," endorsed Ronny. "We are in luck to get here in time enough for the unmasking."

The others heartily agreeing, the octette again set off in a hurry for the gymnasium. Five minutes afterward they were entering its welcome portal. They were obliged to make a frantic dash for the coat room. Once there, wraps and overshoes were removed with gleeful haste. The belated masqueraders entered the gymnasium just as the last, lingering strains of a waltz were being played. It had hardly died away when the stentorian order "Unmask!" was shouted out by a junior through a megaphone.

"Here's where Muriel wins that dinner at Baretti's," declared Jerry ruefully. "I certainly did not walk up to her and say, 'h.e.l.lo, Muriel.'

Wonder where she is? I haven't the least idea what her costume is."

"For the sake of old Ireland!" called Leila, pointing. "Now will you kindly take notice?"

A little shout of laughter burst from the partic.i.p.ants in the recent adventure as they obeyed Leila's exclamatory request. Coming toward them at a carefully simulated stride was a handsome young man in evening dress. From his silk opera hat to his patent leather ties he was a most elegant person. He was not a particularly gallant youth, however, for his first words on approaching the mirthful group were:

"Don't, for goodness' sake, ask me to take off my hat. How about that dinner you promised me, Jeremiah?"

"Yes, I _guess_ so. Oh, but you are polite! Greet us with your hat on and beg for a dinner invitation. My, my! What are the young men of the present day coming to?" Jerry held up her hands in mock disapproval.

"Anyway, you win. Your costume is a dandy. I never would have known you."

"What may your name be, young man?" inquired Leila, her eyes dancing.

"You may call me Mr. Harding. I shall not tell you my first name until I know you better," replied Muriel with an attempt at pompous dignity which ended in a hearty laugh. Setting her high hat on the back of her head she thrust her hands in her pockets and beamed on her friends.

"You look for all the world like a debonair young man," Marjorie said admiringly.

"Thank you. Sorry about my hat. To take it off spoils the masculine effect. My hair is rolled under to look short. My hat keeps it in place.

But never mind about me. Where have you girls been? I knew what your costumes were to be, so I watched for you from the minute I got here.

Confess; you wore dominos over them so that I wouldn't know you. A number of girls did that on purpose to throw their friends off the track."

"Wrong guess, Muriel. We weren't here at all until about two minutes before the unmasking." Jerry tried to speak carelessly, but could not keep an excited note out of her voice.

"You _weren't_? Honestly?" Muriel showed bewildered surprise. "You weren't in dominos? Then where were you? Something's happened. I can read that in your faces." She glanced almost challengingly about the half circle.

"Something happened, all right enough," replied Jerry with grim emphasis. "Marjorie has been through a real adventure tonight. She's been hazed by the Sans and rescued by the Lookouts and a few more good scouts."

CHAPTER XXIV.

AFTER THE FRAY.

Closeted in one of the small rooms off the gymnasium, rescuers and rescued told their separate tales of what had happened that evening.

Muriel was the only other girl at the private session they held. She heartily mourned the fact that she had not been with her chums. Even the glories of parading about in masculine attire faded beside the evening's adventure.

"What are you going to do about it, Beauty?" Leila asked almost sharply, when the affair had been thoroughly gone over from both standpoints.

Dressed as Finestra, a Celtic witch woman, Leila made a striking figure in her white and green robes as she sat on the low wall bench, hands loosely clasped over one knee, her vivid features alive with disapproval.

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess." Marjorie smiled into Leila's moody face. "It will scare them worse just to leave them in doubt as to whether or not they will be called to account. I can't prove that those dominos were the Sans, for I didn't see their faces. Of course, if I accused them of hazing me, in making a report to President Matthews, they would probably be summoned and put through an inquiry. In that case some of them would be certain to weaken and confess."

"True," Leila nodded. "Dr. Matthews would be hard on them. He is so bitterly opposed to hazing. It would stir up a great commotion. They would be expelled. They ought to be," she added with force.

"Certainly they ought," concurred Jerry, "but who cares to be the one to report 'em? I was thinking out the whole thing when we made our get-away from that house. They don't know and they are never going to, unless we tell them, who Ronny was or who did the howling. When they experience a return of brains, for they certainly were rattled, they will naturally guess that the surprise came from students. What they won't be able to figure out is whether they were hazed by another crowd or by Marjorie's supporters."

"They couldn't be sure that Marjorie would not leave word with some of us as to where she was going," put in Lucy, "even though someone did put that line in the letter asking her not to mention it."

"They must have had high ideas of her sense of honor," smiled Vera.

"I felt queer about telling the Lookouts, yet I believed it fair,"

Marjorie said quietly. "I am glad I did. And now let's forget it and go and have a good time. We really ought to enjoy ourselves hugely, for I doubt whether a single Sans will appear on the scene tonight. If they do it will be late. I hope none of them were hurt in the dark," she added charitably.

"Their fault if they were." Leila rose, her brooding face lighting suddenly. "You have a most forgiving heart, Beauty. As for myself, a few sound b.u.mps will do them no harm. Make no mistake. Those of the Sans who are presentable," she smiled broadly, "will get here as soon as they can. All of them absent would be a grand expose. Some must appear to take the curse off the wounded."

At that very moment the members of the high tribunal of the Scarlet Mask were engaged in trying to make themselves presentable enough to attend the dance. A crestfallen and weary company of avengers, they had at last made harbor at Wayland Hall. Miss Remson had retired early on account of a severe cold. The dance having claimed the other residents of the Hall, there was no one to mark the line of dominos which stole cat-footed up the stairs. There was considerable repairing to be done both to persons and costumes before the Sans could appear in college society. In that mad scramble to leave the dingy house, which Leslie Cairns had rented with so much satisfaction, there had been casualties.

Natalie Weyman's cheek bore a long disfiguring scratch, caused from a too near contact with a fancy pin or ornament. A jab from someone's elbow had decorated Dulcie Vale with a black eye. Leslie Cairns, who had essayed to unlock the front door in the dark, declared resentfully that she had received more kicks, thumps and bruises than all the others had put together. Due to the fact that the whole party had worn flat-heeled, black leather slippers, which had been purchased in the men's department of a Hamilton shoe store, the casualties were less serious. Leslie had insisted on this measure as a further means of disguising their s.e.x. The hazers had worn their masquerade costumes under their dominos, having been told by Leslie that they would not be more than an hour at the untenanted house. They could easily drop into the Hall and change slippers on their return. It had been Leslie's private intention to leave Marjorie there all night. Joan Myers, Natalie Weyman and Dulcie Vale knew this. The others did not. Hence the objections which had arisen, resulting in the quarrel that had been their undoing.

There was not one of the hazing party who had entirely escaped injury.

Tender toes had been trampled upon, jarring jolts administered, and scratches and bruises distributed _ad libitum_. Leslie was outwardly morose. Her inner emotions were too complex to be a.n.a.lyzed. They were a mixture of hate, fear, baffled pride and humiliation. The cherished scheme, concocted by her in the autumn, and on which she had spent so much time and money, had utterly fallen through. Exposure and disgrace stared herself and her companions in the face. Had not Marjorie contemptuously called her by name? While she could not prove her surmise, she could report the Sans on suspicion to Doctor Matthews.

Now that it was all over, Leslie realized bitterly that she and her companions had behaved like a flock of demoralized geese. She had been as badly startled as the others by the appearance of the bat-like figure. She had recently read a very horrible tale ent.i.tled "The Bat Girl." It had haunted her for several nights after the reading. Ronny's clever imitation of a huge bat had momentarily paralyzed her with fear.

The unearthly shrieks, wails and moans had also served the purpose of the invaders. Leslie sullenly wished her own plan had been half as well carried out. It was all the fault of her pals. They were always disagreeing. They never worked together. They never exhibited good sense in an emergency. Leslie decided that they should bear the blame for the fiasco. They would hear from her in scathing terms when she felt equal to upbraiding them.