“Lie still, damn you!” he shrieked, and seized the man brutally by the throat. A hand cold and clammy clutched his feebly. “Let go!” he screamed with another curse, and struck the face angrily with his hand. He tore the neckcloth, collar and all, from the man’s throat, and started to turn away, when a low voice came from the coffin. With a laugh that was not nice to hear, Van Patten staggered across the vault. As he neared the door his head struck against one of the iron coffin supports and he fell heavily to the ground. * * * * * Van Patten’s three friends sat around the table in the country house, anxiously waiting for the return of the captain. The wager was lost to Van Patten, for it was nearly two hours since he left the house, and the men were about to start out in search of him, when the front door opened and someone staggered into the lighted room from the hall. But the white-faced man who lurched toward them, with clothes torn and covered with blood, was not the captain, but Andrew Phelps. He talked wildly and incoherently; but they gathered from his ravings that he had been rescued from a living grave by someone who had immediately set upon him like a madman. Leaving the doctor with him, the other two men started out in search of the missing captain. They did not find him on the road leading to the cemetery; but when they neared the vault they found the door half opened, while the sound of maniacal singing came out through the night. They pushed the door wide open, and there by the dim light of the lanterns a strange sight shocked their gaze. Two of the coffins were broken open. One was empty; but partially in the other and partly scattered about the tomb, as if thrown as a child tosses its playthings, were some ghastly things, the sight of which made young Churchill sick and faint. On the edge of the coffin in which the body of the tramp had been placed sat Van Patten; but he did not look up as they entered. They brought the light close to his face, but he only leered vacantly at them and continued singing. In one hand he held something on which he was trying to fit his fur glove, and at his feet lay a torn black neckcloth. THE STORY THE DOCTOR TOLD. THE STORY THE DOCTOR TOLD. To begin with, let me say that I am not a story-teller, neither can I make fine phrases nor coin strange words which shall delight the ear. I am only a country doctor, getting well along in years, and I write this tale only because I promised Richard Crew so to do, as I held his feverish hand while he lay and tossed in pain, and prayed for a death that would not come.