His only reply was a gasp, as the noises recommenced. The body, whatever it was, seemed to have dragged itself forward, so as to be now just over our heads. The ceiling above us went right up into the roof, and I could distinctly hear a rustling sound against the tiles, followed by an occasional upward leap, sometimes almost wild in its eagerness. How could I mistake these sounds? The chimney was immediately above us, and it was towards this goal, as I well knew, that the hapless and legless Bubbles was destined fruitlessly to aspire. At last one bound more frantic than the rest, followed by a sudden clatter of displaced tiles, unloosed my tongue, and I fairly cried out-- "Oh!" Half a dozen fellows were on the alert in an instant. "Who's that called out?" cried one. "I'd like to scrag him." "What's the row, whoever it is?" demanded Fergus. "Hush! Listen!" was all I could reply. There must have been something in my voice which bespoke my horror, for a dead silence ensued. But not for long. Once more the dull, dragging sound, interrupted by the spasmodic and fruitless leaps! A shudder went round the dormitory at the sound. They knew as well as I did what it meant. "It's the ghost!" faltered Sparrow's trembling voice; and no one contradicted him. Fergus himself, like one suddenly confronted with a spirit of his own raising, seemed the most terrified of the lot, and I could hear him gasping as he sat petrified in his bed. "Can't some one strike a light?" Lamb said presently. All very well, but the matches were on the table, and to secure them one would have to get out of bed. No one seemed quite inclined for that. As we lay endeavouring to screw up our courage to the necessary pitch, the sound once more recommenced, with a violent motion towards the edge of the roof. The moon at the same moment broke out from behind the clouds and shot its pale light in at the big windows. There was a momentary pause above us, and then, casting a sudden shadow across the dormitory floor, a dim white figure, as of a body without limbs, floated down outside the window. The moon once more was obscured, and we were left motionless and horrified in utter silence and darkness! What would come next? How long we might have remained in suspense I can't say, had not Lamb and another fellow, by a combined effort of heroism, dashed arm in arm from bed and secured the matches. They were in the act of striking a light (one match had broken, and another had had no head)--they were in the act of striking a light when Lamb, who was close to the window, suddenly exclaimed--"Look!" There was such terror in his tone that we knew only too well what he had seen. But where! "Where?" I managed to gasp. "There, down in the quad," he replied, pointing out of the window, but looking another way. Curiosity is sometimes greater than fear, and for all my terror I could not resist the impulse to steal up to the window and look out. And others did the same.