And now what weird forms from the "night's Plutonian shore" are those which, joined in close procession, invade the folding doors, and with thunderous steps--matched in echo--storm down the quaking aisles? Doomed spirits, or ministers of heaven's delayed vengeance, it matters little; and 'neath such a materialized spell from the echoless lands, who could doubt, or doubting, live? On they come, looking neither to the right nor left, neither mending their gait nor halting, until they have plunged _in medias res_, when, with a scarcely perceptible pause--those ponderous boot-heels, describing a half circle, smite the puncheon floor--every limb is adjusted to the most graceful of company manoeuvres; and turning on their march, they move with the same echoing tread down the aisles, out at the folding-doors and into the darkness--away--away. But stop, ha! that sigh of relief springing to a hundred throats was premature--the fiend hath but dismissed his attendants, himself remains. Standing ten feet in his boots, and clad in full Ku-Klux regalia (described in a previous chapter), an embodiment of rank ghostliness, he now occupied the centre of the building, and if anything was wanting to that "ghastly, grim, ungainly" ideal, which those who placed it there were seeking to embody, it was supplied in the most threatening of tragic postures, and a gesture whose very fixedness was not its least eloquent feature. This latter described a horizontal line from the shoulder to the finger-tips, and, _horribile dictu_, the index-finger was pointed squarely at the anatomy of the august personage who was--had been, we should say--presiding over the deliberations of the body. For about twenty seconds that individual had been viewing the landscape from the _de mortuis_ standpoint; but being recalled to animation by the excessive personality of this proceeding, he executed three handslings and a somersault, and was at rest for the time being in a pile of superannuated furniture at the far end of the hall. Then there was a rush from the "third person" element, who could but feel that the grammatical situation was getting momentarily worse. Benches and desks were overturned; stoves and stove furniture came tumbling about their heads; a pillar, swept from its moorings by the human wave, fell with a boom like cannon at sea, and, hark! louder still, and rising above the din, a human voice hoarsely bawling, "Take him out!"