The Witchmaster's Key (14 page)

“That's on the southeast coast,” Mrs. Evans explained. “I've been there. It's quite respectable.”

Shirley giggled. “Respectable, Mother? How can witches be respectable?”

“Well, Shirley, the couple who run the Witches Mill told me the coven prayed for rain at their last meeting. I call that respectable. Our farmers need rain.”

After a little more chatting, the boys thanked their hosts and got up to go. Shirley said to Joe, “Don't forget to write to me,” and added archly, “it will foster international understanding.” Her father chuckled.

“I'll write, scouts honor,” Joe replied as he left.

On the way back, Joe took a lot of good-natured teasing from the others about his new girl friend, but in their room the talk became serious.

“If that guy the serving girl saw was Lord Craighead,” Phil wondered, “what was he doing on the Isle of Man?”

“Who knows? Perhaps he's still here, alive and well,” Frank speculated.

“Maybe He Goat came here to see Craighead!” Joe exclaimed.

Chet flexed his biceps. “I'm ready to butt heads with He Goat!”

When night fell they returned to Black Magic Hall. The street was empty. A single dim light shone behind the drawn shades of the witch museum. Frank paused on a corner.

“Let's synchronize watches,” he suggested. “It's five to nine. Joe and I will go in and join the coven. If we don't come out in an hour, you fellows rush to the rescue.”

“Understood,” Phil said. “Meanwhile, I'll watch the front of the building.”

“I'll patrol the back,” Chet promised.

“Okay,” Joe said, “here we go.”

The woman opened the door of Black Magic Hall when Frank tapped on it. An old dusty grandfather's clock began to sound the hour of nine as they entered. The strokes boomed through the murky museum, setting up echoes in a long dark passageway leading to the rear of the building.

The sound made Frank uneasy. “That clock bothers me,” he whispered to Joe while the
woman was bolting the front door. “It's like the countdown to a funeral.”

The man they had spoken to the day before suddenly strode out of the dark passageway and confronted them.

“Have you the money?” he demanded.

Frank and Joe each handed him ten pounds.

The witch counted the bills carefully before putting them in his coat pocket.

“Never fear, the black witches will take care of you,” he said with a sinister smirk.

“You'll have to wear this,” his sister hissed menacingly.

She deftly pulled a black velvet hood over Frank's head and drew the string tight under his chin. Her brother did the same to Joe. The Hardys were blindfolded before they knew it.

They joined hands at a command from the woman, who took Frank by the arm and led him down the dark passageway. Joe followed and the man came last, gripping Joe's shoulder with fingers like iron claws.

The rattle of a chain told the boys that a door was being opened. They were pushed out of Black Magic Hall to a car with its motor idling.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Frank protested. “Where are you taking us?”

“You want to visit our coven, don't you?” the man asked. “That's where we are going. Now get in the car!”

Frank felt his way into the back seat and Joe stumbled in beside him. Both were uneasy as the car roared off.

“I wonder if Chet saw us,” Frank thought.

Chet had spotted them, but the car shot away before he could do a thing. Racing around the building, he told Phil that the Hardys had been kidnapped. They frantically looked for a taxi, but the street was deserted.

“What'll we do?” Chet wailed. “They're gone, and we have no idea where!”

The car bearing Frank and Joe raced through Douglas, barreling along the streets and taking curves at high speed. The boys could feel the change from asphalt to a dirt road, and they realized they were in the countryside.

The driver cursed savagely when he had to slow down for a flock of sheep. Circling behind them, he made the speedometer jump again.

Joe estimated that they had driven for an hour when they began to feel salty sea air. The wheels bounced and jounced over roads pitted with potholes. Finally the driver braked to a jolting stop.

A couple of powerful men dragged the Hardys out of the car. Again they were ordered to clasp hands. Again they were led forward, blindfolded by the velvet hoods.

They went down a sloping ramp, through an open doorway, and up a stone staircase. Joe stumbled on the top step and fell.

The boys were blindfolded
.

“Get up!” a harsh voice growled. “Move on or it will be the worse for you!”

Frank started to protest that they could scarcely breathe, let alone move, but his words got lost in the folds of his hood.

Joe scrambled to his feet. The march went on. A flagstone corridor led to a broad curve followed by a sharp corner. There were more stairs and more corridors.

By now Frank and Joe were completely confused about the route.

“That's the idea,” Joe thought. “They're taking us the long way so we won't know where we are.”

Frank, who had been trying to memorize the many turns and twists of the route, gave up in despair. “A white mouse in a maze is a lot better off than we are,” he said to himself. “At least the mouse can see!”

Rough hands brought the Hardys to a sudden halt.

“The moon is full,” said a strange voice.

“The sun has set,” responded the man who had growled at Joe on the staircase.

“Since you know the password,” the strange voice continued, “only one question remains. Who are these two strangers?”

“Sacrifices!”

The word gave the boys cold chills.

“Are you sure of their identity?” the strange voice demanded.

“Yes. I followed them to their inn. The landlady gave me their names–Frank and Joe Hardy. She passed the information to Black Magic Hall. That is how we trapped them.”

“Well done. You may pass.”

The boys were pushed forward and hustled down one last flight of stone steps. They heard a key turn in a lock. A door screeched open and the two captives were hurled headlong into a room as cold and dank as a dungeon. A chatter of eerie voices greeted them. Then all was silent until a man spoke with a gloating cackle.

“He Goat, unmask them!”

H
E
Goat's fingers loosened the drawstrings and whipped off the velvet hoods. Frank and Joe got to their feet and blinked.

They were horrified by the scene before them. They found themselves in a large stone chamber with no windows. Rows of black candles flickered from sockets in the walls. Blazing logs on a big hearth sent tongues of flame flicking up the chimney.

Ten men and women stood in a semicircle facing the boys. All wore hideous witch masks. He Goat was unmistakable, since his mask was the head of a goat with a protruding snout and short, curved horns.

A wooden throne stood against one wall, and upon it sat a man representing Satan. His ghastly mask was crowned by a weird headdress of purple and white feathers. He held a wand in one hand
and a sword in the other. At his elbow stood a crystal ball on a tripod.

The eyes of the evil creature glistened from the firelight as his gaze bored through the Hardys.

Now for the first time Frank and Joe noticed an open coffin lying at Satan's feet. In it was a body, but the boys were unable to get a clear view of the cadaver.

Finally Satan intoned, “There are now thirteen present. That makes a coven, assuming that our two apprentice witches are genuine.”

Abruptly he leaned forward and waved his wand over the body of the coffin. His voice became hoarse as he croaked, “Abracadabra! Abracadabra! Abracadabra!”

The other witches took up the chant, which rose in a howling crescendo, making the Hardys' blood run cold.

Then Satan leaned back on his throne and mumbled an incantation. He pointed the sword at the boys and shook his feather headdress ominously.

“Do you wish to survive this encounter?” he snarled.

“Yes, we do,” Frank answered.

“You must swear allegiance to me, Frank and Joe Hardy!”

Obviously this diabolical character knew them. But whose face was concealed behind that mask in the nightmarish charade?

The man spoke again. “You must swear allegiance to me!”

Joe clenched his fist and screwed up all his courage. “Nuts to you!” he replied.

“Second the motion!” Frank blurted out.

Satan shook with rage. “You cheeky impostors! You're no apprentices! No!”

His seething voice became a low whine. “You had your chance to leave England. We gave you plenty of warnings. You refused to heed. Now you will remain with us
forever!
He Goat, prepare the rack! But first, the potion!”

Several men seized the boys, pinioning their arms and forcing their heads back. Two women came forward with gold flagons in their hands. The metal gleamed in the dim light.

Frank recognized the crest–a griffin carrying off a knight in armor and the legend:
Avoir la Serre Bonne
.

The flagon was from Professor Rowbotham's Witch Museum! A split second later Frank felt something cold touch his lips. The witch tilted the flagon and a bitter liquid streamed into his mouth and down his throat. He choked on it.

Joe was also forced to swallow the fluid. They felt themselves growing faint.

“They've poisoned us!” Frank coughed.

Satan cackled. “It would be fortunate for you if we had. This potion will make you easier to handle,
that is all. We want you to be awake for the climax.”

“The climax?” Joe gasped.

“The rack!”

Two medieval torture instruments occupied one corner of the room. They looked like wooden bed frames with slats held together by thick ropes. But the head and foot of each frame were movable and could be extended by a winch.

The Hardys were thrown on the racks. Their hands and feet were bound tightly in a spread-eagle position.

He Goat chuckled. “Now we are going to give you the treatment!” As he turned toward the winch, his mask slipped far enough to reveal his face.

Goodman, the Craighead butler!

“How did you get here?” Frank cried out.

He Goat adjusted his mask and chuckled again. “It doesn't matter that you know who I am. You won't tell anybody.”

Seizing the handle of the winch, he began to turn it. Frank felt his arms and legs drawn taut by the ropes. The stretching continued, causing sharp pains in his wrists and ankles.

Another witch turned the handle of the rack Joe had been tied to. The pain became agonizing, and when the boys cried out for help, the witches erupted into spasms of fiendish mirth.

They ceased at a signal from Satan. “That will do for now,” he commanded. “The torture will resume in a moment. Keep the racks in readiness.”

Descending from his wooden throne, Satan approached the Hardys. He drew a large, ornate key from under his robe and flaunted it in their faces.

“This is the key of death!” he cackled. “Look well at it!”

“What–is–it?” Joe gasped.

“The key to the door of your tomb!”

He was about to say something else when a small red light in the ceiling blinked on and off.

“Visitors!” Satan hissed. “To your work–all of you!” He handed the key to He Goat. “Keep this for me. I want to use it later.”

Frank and Joe were released from the ropes that held them and hauled to their feet. The witches draped the black hoods over their heads and pushed them to an exit. Again a car with motor idling awaited them.

In the fresh air the boys became alert. They ripped their hoods off and sailed into the witches, who were attempting to force them into the car.

“Let 'em have it!” Frank shouted as he gave He Goat a karate chop.

“But good!” Joe exploded, hitting another witch with a haymaker.

The whole coven seemed to be there, except Satan. Witch robes were shredded and witch
masks torn off as the Hardys battled their captors.

The fight was still raging when footsteps were heard pounding inside the building. The witches ran. He Goat jumped into the car and sped off.

“Are you all right, Joe?” It was Shirley's anxious voice.

“Yes–eh–fine. But you came just in time!” Gratefully the boys looked at their rescue squad–Chet and Phil, accompanied by Mr. Evans and his daughter.

Frank fought for breath as he gave Chet a weak slap on the back. “How'd you find us?”

Chet told him that he saw the Hardys taken out the back door of Black Magic Hall. “Phil and I had no way to follow you. So we went to Mr. Evans and asked him where the old castle was where the black witches met.”

“I happened to know it was here,” the lawyer told them.

“So, we drove over at once,” Shirley added.