At it they went again hammer and tongs, pounding each other, and puffing at a great rate. But while this was going on several other “brave” individuals were engaged, with swords, proving their valour, one against the other. The doors were all locked, the windows were closed, and the servants’ hall being so far away from the knight’s apartments the noise was not heard. Curses, not loud but deep, were heard on every side, and the Skeleton Crew looked on with delight, as they saw the blood flowing an all sides, while their chief sat on a high seat, quaffing wine, and delighted with the bloodthirsty, fiendish work going on around him. It was a terrible feast of blood! The Skeleton Band hideously grinned and chuckled at the sight of blood around them. Shouts of pain and death groans were like music in their demon ears; the writhings of several victims, as they hung from the beams above, thrilled them with joy, as, with bony hands, they pointed to them twisting and dangling in the air. This horrible carnival had lasted long. The best looking of the females were then carried off by several of the Skeleton Band to some rendezvous near by, with limbs bound and their mouths gagged; but those left behind were hung to the rafters quickly, and without mercy. * * * * * This was an annual gory banquet, which the chief of the Skeleton Crew kept up to celebrate his career as the famous Scourge of the Sea! He and most of his crew had come with the firm resolve to massacre every one in Darlington Hall. This was but the commencement of their horrible sport. Well might the Skeleton Crew and their charmed Phantom Ship have long been the terror and fright of all the coasts and seas around. Many a family had been slaughtered in cold blood on shore, and many a good ship’s company mangled and their vessels plundered and sunk by these aptly termed Demons of the Deep. But they had not come to Darlington Hall solely to satisfy their thirst for blood. It was the villain and murderer, Redgill, they assisted. He hated Wildfire Ned with bitter animosity because he could not supplant the brave youth in the affections of young Alice, the wealthy daughter of Countess Bluefield, sister to Sir Richard, whose estates were hard by. But hitherto Redgill had been successful in his knavery. Alice had suddenly disappeared. She had been kidnapped from her home. And while from home her parents had been slaughtered and the mansion sacked by the Skeleton Crew. It was now the aim of these fiends to murder all in Darlington Hall, and for Redgill to forge a will in his own favour, and to claim the estate. But the cleverest villains are caught in traps of their own making, as will be seen in succeeding chapters of this story. Suffice it to say that on this occasion the Skeleton Crew were carrying out their plans to murder all the servants first and the owners afterwards. * * * * *