Absolute stillness reigned over the weird column, no man being permitted to speak, even in a whisper, while the large bridle-bits, Texas spurs, and other appendages of a cavalry outfit likely to create alarm in passing through quiet neighborhoods were carefully muffled. These details completed the unsightly pageant; and of the party who viewed it, as it moved, at funereal pace, through the moonlit precincts of the Thorburn estate, on the evening referred to, no individual ever forgot the scene, or was ever known to whisper an irreverent word concerning the objects, plans, or creed of the festive K. K. K. CHAPTER IV. SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING K. K. K. Impressions after a K. K. K. Raid--Will Morning never come?--Conjectures Regarding the Subject in the Minds of those who should have been Prepared to Render an Opinion--What Superstitious People thought--The Mill Council--Boys and Colored Men--K. K. K. Arraigned on various Charges, and Acquitted for Want of Testimony--The Subject an Enigma--Man a Superstitious Animal--Education the Best and a Poor Antidote. On the immemorial night referred to Crow Hide slept uneasily, for besides an indefinable something in the air, that brooded over men's spirits like a spell from the other world, there were strange sounds from without creeping into hallways and banging at the doors of apartments; dogs were disconsolate, and whined incessantly; barn-yard echoes stole in on every breeze; and the moon-beams, falling into windows, and past the forms of sleepers, by their jerky, undecided motion, said, as plainly as words, "We are dissatisfied with ourselves." Children tossed their arms about wildly as they slept, and when wakened, requested that their couches might be removed from the neighborhood of windows. A weird somnambulism took possession of the forms of men and women, leading them to doors and windows, and sometimes rents in the wall, where they awoke to find themselves in listening attitudes, and to listen. Horses neighed, cattle lowed, and chains which might have been attached to watch-dogs, but were not, made the circuit of buildings, or were tossed against the boundaries of closes. Would morning never come? Girls and timid boys revolved this query in their minds, building a faint hope thereon; but when they held their breaths and listened, they found, as their fears had informed them, that the clock pendulums, hammering away at the seconds, made no gap in time. Others, who felt no certain fear, but a boding uneasiness, thought to count the moments on their fingers while the gloom lasted; but so frequently were they interrupted by strange sounds from without, that they found themselves ever recurring to the point where they began. Even the chickens on their roosts were witch-ridden, and crowed lustily for day, when the half-grown moon had not yet passed meridian.