Ronan needed no further bidding. Accompanied by his aunt's gardener and two or three villagers--for the gardener would not venture there without a formidable escort; the place, he said, bore a most evil and sinister reputation--he at once proceeded to the Towers, and, in one of the cellars, bricked up in a recess, they found a skeleton--the skeleton of a man, on one of whose fingers was a signet-ring, which Miss Bridget Malachy at once identified as having belonged to her missing brother. Moreover, with the remains were a few tattered shreds--all that was left of the clothes--and, though blackened and rusty, a number of tiny bells, such as might have once adorned the cap of a Court jester. * * * * * The Spelkin Towers is still haunted, for it has ghosts of its own, but never, I believe, since that memorable experience of Ronan's within its grey and lichen-covered walls, has it again been visited by the Banshee. CHAPTER XIII MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH THE BANSHEE In order definitely to establish my claim to the Banshee, I am obliged to state here that the family to which I belong is the oldest branch of the O'Donnells, and dates back in direct unbroken line to Niall of the Nine Hostages. I am therefore genuinely Celtic Irish, but, in addition to that, I have in my veins strains both of the blood of the O'Briens of Thomond (whose Banshee visited Lady Fanshawe), and of the O'Rourkes, Princes of Brefni; for my ancestor, Edmund O'Donnell, married Bridget, daughter of O'Rourk of the house of Brefni, and his mother was the daughter of Donat O'Brien of the house of Thomond. All of which, and more, may be ascertained by a reference to the Records of the Truagh O'Donnells.[15] Possibly my first experience of the Banshee occurred before I was old enough to take note of it. I lost my father when I was a baby. He left home with the intention of going on a brief visit to Palestine, but, meeting on the way an ex-officer of the Anglo-Indian army, who had been engaged by the King of Abyssinia to help in the work of remodelling the Abyssinian army, he abandoned his idea of visiting the Holy Land, and decided to go to Abyssinia instead. What actually happened then will probably never be known. His death was reported to have taken place at Arkiko, a small village some two hours walking distance from Massowah, and from the letters[16] subsequently received from the French Consul at Massowah and several other people, as well as from the entries in his diary (the latter being recovered with other of his personal effects and sent home with them), there seems to have been little, if any, doubt that he was trapped and murdered, the object being robbery. The case created quite a sensation at the time, and is referred to in a work entitled "The Oriental Zig-zag," by Charles Hamilton, who, I believe, stayed some few years later at the house at Massowah, where my father lodged, and was stated to have shared his fate.