Sybil began to prepare the breakfast, but none of the party felt like
eating it.
"And that is another sign of opium! We have no appetite," observed Lyon
Berners, as they sat down around the table-cloth; and instead of
discussing the viands before them, they discussed the events of the
preceding day and night.
Lyon Berners remembered that Sybil and himself had spent nearly the
whole of the preceding afternoon in rambling through the woods; and he
suggested as the only solution of the mystery that, during their absence
some one had entered the chapel, and put opium in their food and drink.
"'Some one;' but whom?" inquired Captain Pendleton, incredulously.
"Most probably the girl whom we have seen here," answered Mr. Berners.
"But for what purpose do you think she drugged your drink?"
"To throw us into a deep sleep for many hours, which would enable her to
come and go, to and from the chapel, undiscovered and unmolested."
"But why should she wish to come back and forth to such a dreary, empty
old place as this?"
"Ah! that I cannot tell; at that point conjecture is utterly baffled,"
answered Lyon.
"Yes; because conjecture has been pursuing a phantom--a phantom that
vanishes upon being nearly approached. I cannot accept your theory of
the mystery, Berners; and what is worse, I cannot substitute one of my
own," said Captain Pendleton, shaking his head.
"And now I have something to reveal," said Sybil, solemnly.
"Another morning dream?" inquired Lyon, while Pendleton looked up with
interest.
"No; a reality--a ghastly, horrible reality," she answered.
And while both looked at her with strange, deep interest and curiosity,
she related her sepulchral experiences of the night. When with pale
cheeks and shuddering frame she described the six dark, shrouded forms
that had come up out of the vault, bearing long shadowy coffins, which
they carried in a slow procession down along the east wall, past the
Gothic windows and out at the front door, her two listeners looked at
her, and then at each other, in amazement and incredulity.
"It was an opium dream," said Mr. Berners, in a positive manner.
"It would be useless, dear Lyon, for me to tell you that I was rather
wider awake then than I am now, yet I really was," said Sybil, with
equal assurance.
"And yet you did not lift hand or voice to call my attention to what was
going on."
"I did not wish to do it; my will seemed palsied. I could only gaze at
the awful procession and think how ghastly it was, and thinking so, I
sank into a dreamless sleep, and knew no more until I woke up this
afternoon."
"Meanwhile let us go and look at the door of the vault. You say the
door was wide open?" inquired Captain Pendleton.