Down went Bart, with Solomon, shuddering and quaking, at his heels, and finally reached the door. “Now, then, Solomon,” he said, “run for it.” Away went Solomon, in a frenzy of fear, his whole frame shuddering in vague superstitious terror, his brain reeling with excitement, his fancy crowded with images of horror. Away he went; he burst into the boarding-house, he raced up the stairs, he rushed into his room as before, banged all the furniture against the door, and lay crouched in a corner, and quaking till morning. Bart returned at once. “Boys,” said Jiggins, “it’s a solemn time--a deeply solemn time!” “Won’t you come up, Jiggins?” “No, boys,” said Jiggins; “and I warn you not to go up. That’s a solemn place--a deeply solemn place.” “Well, come up, and help us to feel the solemnity,” said Bart. Jiggins shook his head. “I don’t like the looks of it,” said he. “It’s too solemn. There’s a certain something about it that makes me feel a--kind of a--a degree of a--solemnity--that--a--” But Jiggins’s voice died away upon the ears of the boys, as they ascended the stairs, before he could finish what he was trying to say. The object of the boys in going up now was, first, to find the cause of the knock, and secondly, to find the cause of the tolling bell. They thought that perhaps some one might be concealed in the attic, and so they looked about very carefully in all directions. Tom stood at the head of the attic stairs, so as to bar the way to any possible fugitive. The others then went all over the attic most carefully, beginning at the end next Pat’s room, and so on over to the open space under the cupola. Crossing this, they searched all over the farther end. They peeped into every nook and corner, they left nothing unexamined. But at length they were forced to give up this search, for nothing could be found. Coming back, therefore, they stood in silence by the open space under the cupola, and looked down into the gloomy, yawning chasm over which went the narrow plank pathway, and tried to peer through the deep gloom of this place. After standing here for some time, they crossed to the other side, on their way back, and were hero joined by Tom. “Boys,” said Bart, “we can’t get at the bottom of that knock; that’s evident; but we oughtn’t to go till we find out about the bell. What do you say to going up?” “Very well,” said Bruce; “only we can’t take the lamps.” “Of course not; and even if we did, the wind would blow them out. But it don’t make any difference about that. We can feel about, you know. If any one’s in the cupola, we’ll have him, and find out who he is.” “I’ll put the lamp on the plank here,” said Tom, “and it will throw some light up.” “No,” said Arthur; “it might get shaken off, and then good by to the old Academy. In a quarter of an hour, that old tinder-box below would be in flames. Put it over there on the floor. Never mind whether it throws up any light or not. We can all go up in the dark just as well.”