CHAPTER XVI
"SO YOU HAVE COME BACK!"
Screams and frightened exclamations on the part of the girls followedthe queer manifestations. Even Cousin Jane gave a cry of alarm, andclung to Betty. In fact, everyone was clinging to some one else, thetable having been deserted at the first alarm.
There was silence for a moment--no, not altogether a silence, for thenoise of the storm indicated that it was not in the least lessening, butthere was comparative quiet in the room, and then again came thatstrange bluish, flickering glare, and the metallic clanging sound. Thenthere was that startling, hollow groan, that seemed to echo and re-echothrough the deserted house.
"Oh! Oh!" moaned Grace. "This is awful--terrible!"
It was sufficiently terrible there in the darkness, illuminated only bythe lightning, or by that weird blue glare that seemed to come from noplace in particular, but which shone through the whole room--throwinginto ghastly outlines the faces of the girls.
Their lamps had gone out--or been blown out--they did not know which,and as they clung to each other, their hearts pounding, every startlednerve on the alert, Amy gasped:
"What--what made the lights go out? Can anyone tell?"
Even then, Betty confessed afterward, she felt a hysterical desire topropound the old question of where a certain Biblical personage was whenthe light went out, but instead Grace answered before her:
"They were blown out by--by----" she hesitated.
"By the wind!" exclaimed Mollie, quickly. "What else? There's an awfuldraught in here. Who has the matches?"
It was the most sensible thing she could have said under thecircumstances, and it somewhat relieved the tension.
"I have some," answered Grace. "But--but what has happened, anyhow?"
"It's the thunder and lightning," declared Cousin Jane. "It must havestruck somewhere around here. It hit our barn once, and I noticedsomething the same as now. Maybe that put out the lights."
"Well, let's put them in service again," proposed Betty. "I don't likethe dark."
"Neither do I--in here," spoke Mollie. "Please strike a match, Grace."
The interior of the old house was quiet now, as with fingers that wouldtremble in spite of her efforts to still them, Grace lighted a match,and applied the flickering flame to the wick of one of the lamps whichBetty opened. Then, as the cheerful yellow glow shone around them, Amycried:
"Oh, smell that sulphur!"
There was the unmistakable odor in the rather close air of the room.
"It's from the match," said Mollie.
"No, I didn't use a sulphur match," said Grace.
"It's the lightning," declared Cousin Jane. "I noticed that smell, too,when our barn was struck, and I felt as if pins and needles weresticking in me."
"Gracious! I hope that doesn't happen here!" exclaimed Betty, as shehelped Grace light the other lantern. Then the girls looked at oneanother. From the faces they glanced to the table. Nothing there hadbeen altered, nor had the room changed in appearance.
"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Betty with a sigh of relief. "I wascertainly scared at first."
"So was I," admitted Mollie. "I really thought it was--the ghost."
Grace let out a startled cry.
"Stop it!" commanded the Little Captain.
"Well, I wish she wouldn't--blurt it out that way," Grace complained.
"Let's finish the meal," suggested Mollie. "There is some left, andthere's no telling when the owner--or owners--may come along. If we'veeaten it all up they can't do any more than make us pay for it, which weare perfectly willing to do. But if there's some food still left theymight stop us from eating it. So let's begin again, girls."
"I've had all I want," faltered Grace.
"She's sorry because there are no chocolates," laughed Betty.
"No, I'm just too nervous to eat any more," said the tall, willowy one."Oh, wasn't it awful? Those groans--the clanking of chains----"
"How do you know they were chains?" challenged Betty.
"Well, they sounded like them, anyhow."
"That's what we thought on Elm Island, and you know how that turnedout."
"Oh, well, yes; but this is different," protested Grace. "These hollowgroans--there they go again!" and she clutched Amy's arm so suddenlythat a cracker and herring sandwich the latter was eating went to thefloor.
Indeed there did sound through the deserted house a queer, groaningnoise, as if some one was in distress. Betty gave voice to thissuggestion, saying:
"Oh, girls, I wonder if any one can be--hurt?"
"Well, I'm not going to look!" cried Grace. "Oh, let's get away fromthis terrible place. I'd rather be out in the storm than here!"
"In that rain?" asked Mollie, as they listened to the down-rush ofwater. It even drowned the noise of the groans.
"That is only the wind," declared Mrs. Mackson, though she looked overher shoulder apprehensively. "The wind, moaning down an old chimney, orin some broken window, and around a corner--I have often heard it thatway."
"You're a comfort, at least," murmured Betty. "But, girls, I reallywonder if it could be anyone in trouble? Someone who took refuge in herefrom the storm, as we did, and who, wandering about, fell and got hurt.That girl, perhaps--the one from the tree----"
She paused, looking about for some support of her theory.
"Nonsense! How could she be here?" asked Mollie.
"Well, it's not very plausible," admitted Betty. "But some one iscertainly in this place."
"Don't say that!" cried Grace.
"Don't be silly," advised Betty. "Why, of course some one is here, orhas been here. Else how would that food get here? That is not ghostly,at all events. It was very material, and satisfying, and I'm deeplygrateful for it. It stands to reason that some one expected to eat it.
"My theory is that some one, traveling perhaps like ourselves, onlymaybe not in an auto, was overtaken by the storm. More provident than wethey had lunch with them, and brought it in here, intending to eat it.Then some accident happened to them, or----"
"The ghost carried them off," interrupted Mollie, with a glance ofdefiance at Grace, who shuddered, and looked behind her.
"Anyhow they're not here now," went on Betty. "And I don't know but thatit is our duty to look for them."
"Never!" breathed Amy.
"At least we can go to the front door, and see if anyone is passing whomwe can hail, and ask for help. If we could get a man, now----"
"Or even a good-sized boy," broke in Mollie.
"Yes, even a boy would do," conceded Betty. "We could get him to go withus into the other part of the house. There was where all themanifestations seemed to come from."
"Well, let's go to the front door and look," proposed Cousin Jane. "Thatcan do no harm, and really I don't like to think of anyone being indistress."
"Especially after we've eaten his lunch," put in Grace.
"How do you know but that it is a 'her' and not a 'him'?" asked Mollie.
"Nobody but a man would come in here--after dark."
"But we girls did."
"Oh, look how many of us there are. There is safety in numbers."
"Well, I wouldn't be here if there was any other place to go," declaredGrace. "Come on, if we're going," and she moved toward the door, keepingclose to Betty meanwhile.
"There must have been some one here, or else how did we see the lightwhich we followed, and which brought us here?" Mollie wanted to know.
"That, too, may have been caused by the lightning," said Cousin Jane.
"You are bound to ascribe everything to nature," objected Mollie. "It'snice of you, but perhaps not correct."
"Well, you know that electricity does queer things," declared thechaperone. "It might easily cause flickering lights, though I'm notsaying but that some one has been here--the food proves that."
"Perhaps all the ghost is, after all, is lightning; or some tramp, whohas made this his headquarters," said Betty. "Mr. Lagg would be glad toknow that."
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"We'll tell him," suggested Mollie. "It's a pity, while we are here,that we don't solve the mystery of the haunted house. Of course,strictly speaking, we are not in the mansion proper, but we could gothere----"
"Don't you dare!" cried Grace.
They were going along the passage by which they had entered. The rainwas not coming down so hard now, and the lightning and thunder were lessfrequent. The door was swinging to and fro on its hinges, swayed by thewind which blew in gusts up and down the passage.
Mollie was in the rear, carrying one lantern, with Betty in the leadwith the other. They had almost reached the outer door, and were eagerlyhoping they would see some friendly passer-by when a noise behind hercaused Mollie to turn quickly. She saw a tall white object in aproverbially ghostly winding sheet. It had come from a side room.
The thing stretched out two white arms, and hands clutched themselves inMollie's long hair, which had come loose and was hanging down her backin glorious tresses. Then a snarling voice cried:
"So you've come back; have you! Well, you won't get away from me again!Now you get in there!"
Mollie screamed. The others, adding their startled voices to hers,beheld the white figure catch the frightened girl by the arm, and thrusther into the room. Then the door was slammed shut, a key turned in thelock, while the white figure turned and fled down the passage, as aflash of lightning threw its ghostly outlines into weird relief, and acrash of thunder followed.