Seated around a vast table, was a row of figures fantastically dressed and in every extravagant attitude. At first, Frank thought that they were living creatures; but observing that they did not move, he approached nearer, and discovered that they were skeletons. Some were dressed as males, others as females; and many of them, in fearful mockery of death, had been placed in attitudes the most obscene and indecent. Presiding over this ghastly revel, was a gigantic skeleton, arrayed in what had once been a splendid theatrical dress, and grasping in its fleshless hand a large gilt goblet; this figure was seated on a sort of throne, made of rough boards. These were the skeletons of those who had died in the Vaults, as well as of those persons who, having fallen into the power of the band of villains, had been murdered in that dungeon, by starvation or torture. With infernal ingenuity, the Dead Man had arrayed the skeletons in fanciful costumes, which had been plundered from the wardrobe of a theatre; and placed them in the most absurd and indecent positions his hellish fancy could devise. The large skeleton, which seemed to preside over the others, was the remains of a former Captain of the band, celebrated for his many villainies and gigantic stature. While gazing upon this figure, Sydney distinctly saw the head, or skull, nod at him. Astonished at this, yet doubting the evidence of his own eyesight, he approached nearer, and held the lamp close up to it; again it moved, so plainly as to admit of no further doubt. Our hero was not superstitious, but the strangeness of this incident almost terrified him, and he was about to make a rapid retreat to the other side of the dungeon, when the mystery was explained in a manner that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances: a large cat leaped from the skull, where it had taken up an abode, and scampered off, to the great relief of Sydney, who was glad to find that the nod of the skeleton proceeded from such a trifling cause.