There was stretched out on an immense rug, the other hound, his nose between his paws and his watchful, red-rimmed eyes upon the great door leading from the hall to the out-of-doors. No wonder that the sight of him made Jim pause and draw back into the darkness of the upper corridor. One suspicion, and the huge beast would take the staircase in three leaps, and neither quickness, strength nor prowess could have saved Jim if once the hound had caught his trail. "Gosh, I've got to find a weapon somewhere!" Jim mumbled to himself; "this won't do at all." By this time his eyes had become thoroughly accustomed to the dim light and as he turned back he stopped and his heart beat with something almost akin to fright. Now our friend James Darlington was not superstitious by nature, but if that dim, silvery white figure was not a ghost, what in Sam Hill could it be? It stood perfectly quiet to one side and about half way down the hall, evidently looking straight at Jim, but making no move to attack him. What was Jim to do? He could not retreat down the staircase to the main door, for that was to fall into the jaws of the hound. Neither could he reach the library in safety. CHAPTER XX THE BANQUET HALL Then Jim looked up at the wall which was paneled in some light wood and there his eyes saw something that gave him the clue. He straightened up and moved quickly towards the ghostly figure. "How are you, Brian de Bois Guilbert?" he said as he came up. "I should like to borrow your suit of armor if you don't mind." The audacity of James. It was a gigantic suit of armor, and for the moment Jim thought of trying to get into it, but he gave it up. Perhaps as a last resort he might use it, to strike terror into the superstitious greasers and cutthroats who were making their foul nest in this once beautiful home. It would be perfectly useless for him to try and put it on in the hall, for it would make clangor enough to arouse the deaf or the dead. So Jim very gently wheedled the image of the late Sir Brian inch by inch towards the library and finally got it inside. Luckily there was only a few feet to go, but it took Jim the better half of an hour. This incident of the armor goes to show how carefully Jim was looking to a possible chance in the future. Our old college chum, Jim, was certainly strong on strategy. "Now, you stay here, Brian, old Boy," he said, "until I come back; if you don't I'll Ivanhoe your old block for you." Then Jim slipped out in the passageway once more, and went immediately to the place in the hall from whence he had sighted the armor man. There on the wall were medieval weapons--battle-axes, swords and poniards. These were what had given Jim his clue as to what the ghostly figure really represented. "I reckon that I will have to appropriate some of this hardware, before I explore any further."