At half-past ten the Otis family went to bed. For a while before that, the ghost had heard a lot of laughing and shouting from the twins. He decided that the boys were just having some fun because they were young and in a good mood.

But everyone was asleep by a quarter past eleven, and the house was quiet. At midnight, the ghost went out of his room to frighten the family.

It was a dark and windy night, with bats flying, and owls making noises in the trees. The wind blew very hard, making a spooky moaning sound; but the Otis family carried on sleeping. They did not know the plans that the ghost had made. The Ambassador of the United States was snoring so loudly that the ghost could hear him even over the noise of the storm.

The ghost's mouth had an evil smile as he stepped out through a wall into the corridor. The moon hid in a cloud as he walked past the great window and the blue and gold flags of his family and the family of his murdered wife.

On he walked like an evil shadow, and even the darkness seemed to hate him. Once the ghost stopped because he thought he heard a noise, but it was only the barking of a dog far away. He went on, talking to himself with strange words from the sixteenth-century, and he often waved his dagger in the air.

Finally the ghost reached the corner of the corridor that went to Washington's room. The ghost stopped there for a moment. The wind blew his long, grey hair around while he waited, and it twisted his white clothing into strange and fantastic shapes.