CHAPTER X
THE VISITATION OF THE NIGHT
AS suddenly as it had started the weird noise died away.
“Get up, Ham, you idiot,” commanded Henry Tremaine, crisply.
“Ah—Ah’s shuah scahd to death!” stuttered the negro, looking upappealingly, but not rising from his knees.
“You look it,” laughed the owner of the house. “But it’s allfoolishness. There’s no such thing as a ghost.”
“W—w—w—w’uts dat yo’ say?” sputtered Ham Mockus, turning the whites oftwo badly scared eyes in Mr. Tremaine’s direction.
“I say that there is no such thing as a ghost.”
“Yo? say so aftah hearing—_dat_?”
“Neighbors giving us a grisly serenade,” retorted Tremaine, grinning.“Whatever it is, that noise came from strictly human sources.”
“Wut? Me Gwine ter Dat Kitchen—All Alone?”]
“Yassuh! Yassuh!” quavered Ham, as though he wanted to beaccommodating, yet pitied the white man’s ignorance.
“You really think it’s all nonsense of some kind, my dear?” asked Mrs.Tremaine, who, though not giving way to fright, looked unusually grave.
“I’m so certain it’s all nonsense—or malice,” replied her husband,“that I’m going on with my supper if I can prevail upon Ham to bring mesomething more to eat.”
The colored man had risen from his knees, but had moved over close tothe table, where he stood as though incapable of motion.
“You heard Mr. Tremaine, Hamilton?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, rousingly.
“Yassum. Yassum.”
“Then why don’t you bring food to replace what you dropped?”
“Yassum.”
“_Then why don’t you start?_”
“W’ut? Me gwine ter dat kitchen—all alone?” almost shrieked Ham.
“Go with him, won’t you, Jeff?” asked the host, turning to their youngguide.
Jeff Randolph pushed away his chair, rising and signing to the negro tofollow. This Ham did, though moving with reluctant feet. At the door ofthe kitchen Jeff halted, to scowl at Ham and hurry him up. Then bothstepped through into the next room. As they did so, both with a howlretreated back into the living room, while an outer door banged.
“Now—what?” demanded Henry Tremaine, rising from the table and rushingtoward the pair.
“Well, sir, I don’t want to look like a fool,” retorted Jeff, justa bit unsteadily, “but I certainly saw something in white—and aboutten feet high—cross the kitchen. That something ducked and stole outthrough the back door.”
There was no doubting Jeff’s truthfulness, nor his courage, either, inany ordinary sense. Yet, at this moment, the Florida boy certainly didlook uneasy.
“Come along, you two, and I’m going out with you,” spoke Tremaine,decisively, stepping into the kitchen and drawing a revolver from a hippocket. “If we run into any ghost—then so much the worse for the ghost!”
With Henry Tremaine on guard in the kitchen, Jeff and Ham went, too,getting what food was necessary, then returning to the dining room withit. Tremaine locked and bolted the outer kitchen door, dropping the keyinto his pocket. After that, the meal was finished in peace, though Hamtook mighty great pains to remain close to the white folks.
Nor was there any further disturbance through the evening. All retired,to their rooms on the second floor, before ten o’clock.
“What do you make of all this?” asked Joe, as he and his chum weredisrobing in their room.
“Some kind of buncombe, of course,” replied Tom, thoughtfully. “Yet Ican’t see any object or sense in it.”
“One thing we know, anyway,” decided Joe. “Whatever is behind therumpus, there’s something in all this talk about the Ghost of AlligatorSwamp.”
“There’s usually a little fire underneath a lot of smoke,” was CaptainHalstead’s answer.
Joe Dawson went to sleep very soon. Not so with Tom Halstead, wholay tossing a long time, thinking over that letter and its suddendisappearance.
“However, there’s no doubt about Dixon, now, anyway,” Halsteadreflected. “I’ll watch him from now on. Somehow, he’ll take enoughrope, sooner or later, to hang himself.”
He was thinking of that when he dropped asleep. How long he slept hedid not know. It was some time well along in the night when every humanbeing in the bungalow was awakened by the sharp crashing of breakingglass. After the happenings of the early evening all the party weresleeping lightly.
Tom and Joe hit the floor with their feet almost in the same second.While Dawson raced to a window, throwing it up, young Halstead beganhastily to throw on his clothing.
From the two adjoining rooms, occupied by the Tremaines and MissSilsbee, came the sound of women’s voices, talking excitedly.
“I didn’t see anything,” reported Joe, bustling back, “though theracket was on this side of the house.”
As Tom Halstead darted into the hallway he encountered Henry Tremaine.They raced down stairs together, Joe coming next, with Dixon promptlyafter him. Then Jeff arrived at the foot of the stairs. Ham Mockus, asmight have been expected, did not put in an appearance.
Tremaine carried with him a lighted lantern. Tom quickly lighted twolamps.
All the lights of glass in three windows of the living room had beensmashed, the fragments of glass strewing the floor.
“This is an unghostly trick,” declared Tremaine, wrathily. “This isplain, malicious mischief. Fortunately, I have glass and putty withwhich we can repair this damage. But I want to tell you all, right now,if you see a ghost, pot it with a bullet if you can. We’ll keep therifles at hand during the rest of our stay here.”
They went to the rifles, loaded them and waited, after extinguishingthe lights. No more sounds or “signs” bothered the watchers. After anhour of watching, Tremaine, who was a good sleeper, began to yawn.
“I’ll tell you what, sir,” proposed Halstead, finally. “Joe and I willremain on guard, on opposite sides of the house. You and Mr. Dixon mayas well turn in and get some sleep.”
“All right, then,” agreed the owner. “But see here, you call me in twohours, and Dixon and I will come down for a turn at this business.We’ve got to catch this ’ghost,’ if there’s any chance at all; yet wemust all of us have some sleep.”
So the two Motor Boat Club boys, each provided with rifle and box ofcartridges, stepped outside to keep the first watch. At some distanceapart both patrolled slowly around the house, keeping sharp watch ofthe shadows under the nearest of the trees that covered most of thelandscape. Once in a while the two boys met for consultation in lowtones.
“Nothing doing in the ghostly line,” yawned Tom, at last.
“There won’t be,” nodded Joe, “as long as the ghost knows there’s anarmed, unafraid guard patrolling.”
“Then what can it all mean?” wondered Halstead. “What object can anyhuman beings have in annoying other human beings in this fashion?”
Joe shook his head. It was all equally past _his_ powers ofcomprehension.
Nothing happened up to the end of the two hours. Then, while Joeremained outside alone, for a few moments, Halstead went to call Mr.Tremaine. That gentleman and Dixon soon appeared to take up the guardwork, which would last until within two hours of daylight.
“Tremaine, can you keep the watch here by yourself, for a while?”inquired Oliver Dixon, in an undertone.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Then I want to slip away presently. I won’t do so at once because Idon’t want to attract attention of anyone who may be watching us in thewoods. Yet I want to get into the woods, to hide and watch there.”
“You evidently are not afraid to go into the creepy places,” smiled thehost.
“Of course I’m not,” rejoined Dixon. “What I want to do is to see ifI can’t trap some of the human beings who are at the bottom of thisnonsense.”
“Try it, and good luck to you, my boy,” agreed Tremaine, cordially.
Some time
later, Oliver Dixon succeeded in slipping quietly away underthe trees. Not even Henry Tremaine knew quite when it was done. Afterthat, an hour passed, during which the owner of the bungalow patrolledalone about his grounds. Then with startling rapidity there came fromthe woods the sound of four rifle shots.
“Dixon must have stumbled into something!” muttered Henry Tremaine,wheeling and running towards the spot from which the shots seemed tocome.
Just before he reached the edge of the woods Mr. Tremaine halted, forDixon rushed out from under the trees at him. The young man was panting.
“You act as though you’d really seen the ghost,” laughed HenryTremaine, dryly.
“I—I—guess I did!” gasped Dixon. “It was something white, anyway, andabout ten feet high—an indescribable, almost shapeless mass of white.”
“You fired four shots at it?”
“Yes; almost at arm’s length.”
“Did it drop?”
“No; nor run away. It came straight at me—my legs saved me.”
“Let’s go back into the woods after it,” proposed Tremaine, intrepidly.
But Oliver Dixon caught at his host’s arm, muttering hoarsely:
“N-n-not until I get my nerve back, anyway!”