CHAPTER VI. A LIGHT IN THE DARK
The girls cautiously crept up the back stairway which was sheltered fromfog and wind only by rough boards between which were often wide cracks.Time and again a puff of air threatened to put out the flickering flamein the lantern. With one hand Nann guarded it, lest it suddenly sputterout and leave them in darkness. There was a closed door at the top of thestairs, and of course, it was locked, but the key was in it.
"Doesn't that seem sort of queer?" Dories asked as her friend unlockedthe door, removed the key and placed it on the inside.
"Well, it does, sort of," Nann had to acknowledge, "but I'm mighty gladit was there, or how else could we have entered?"
Dories said nothing, but, deep in her heart, she was wishing that she andNann were safely back in Elmwood, where there were electric lights andother comforts of civilization.
Holding the lantern high, the girls stood in the middle of the loft roomand looked around. It was unfinished after the fashion of attics, andthough it was quite high at the peak, the sloping roof made a tent-likeeffect. There were two windows. One opened out toward the rocky point,above which a continuous inward rush of white breakers could be seen, andthe other, at the opposite side, opened toward swampy meadows, a mileacross which on clear nights could be seen the lights of Siquaw Center.
A big, old-fashioned high posted bed, an equally old-fashioned mahoganybureau and two chairs were all of the furnishings.
They found bedding in the bureau drawers, as Miss Moore had told them.Placing the lantern on the bureau, Nann said: "If we wish to have lighton the subject, we'd better make the bed in a hurry. You take that sideand I'll take this, and we'll have these quilts spread in a twinkling."
Dories did as she was told and the bed was soon ready for occupancy. Thenthe girls scrambled out of their dresses, and, just as they leaped inbetween the quilts, the flame in the lantern sputtered and went out.
Dories clutched her friend fearfully. "Oh, Nann," she said, "we neverlooked under the bed nor behind that curtained-off corner. I don't darego to sleep unless I know what's there."
Her companion laughed. "What do you 'spose is there?" she inquired.
"How can I tell?" Dories retorted. "That's why I wish we had looked andthen I would know."
Her friend's voice, merry even in the darkness, was reassuring. "I cantell you just as well as if I had looked," she announced with confidence."Back of these curtains, you would find nothing but a row of nails orhooks on which to hang our garments when we unpack our suitcases, andunder the bed there is only dust in little rolled-up heaps--like as not.Now, dear, let's see who can go to sleep first, for you know we have anengagement with our friend, Gibralter Strait, at sunrise tomorrowmorning."
"You say that as though you were pleased with the prospect," Doriescomplained.
"Pleased fails to express the joy with which I anticipate the----" Nannsaid no more, for Dories had clutched her, whispering excitedly, "Hark!What was that noise? It sounds far off, maybe where the haunted ruin is."
Nann listened and then calmly replied: "More than likely it's the foghorn about which Gib told us, and that other noise is the muffled roar ofthe surf crashing over the rocks out on the point. If there are any morenoises that you wish me to explain, please produce them now. If not, I'mgoing to sleep."
After that Dories lay very still for a time, confident that she wouldn'tsleep a wink. Nann, however, was soon deep in slumber and Dories soonfollowed her example. It was midnight when she awakened with a start, satup and looked about her. She felt sure that a light had awakened her. Atfirst she couldn't recall where she was. She turned toward the window.The fog had lifted and the night was clear. For a moment she sat watchingthe white, rushing line of the surf, then, farther along, she saw a darklooming object.
Suddenly she clutched her companion. "Nann," she whispered dramatically,"there it is! There's a light moving over by the point. Do you supposethat's the ghost from the old ruin?"
"The what?" Nann sat up, dazed from being so suddenly awakened. Then,when Dories repeated her remark, her companion gazed out of the windowtoward the point.
"H'm-m!" she said, "It's a light all right. A lantern, I should say, andits moving slowly along as though it were being carried by someone who issearching for something among the rocks."
Dori's hold on her friend's arm became tighter. "It's coming this way!I'm just ever so sure that it is. Oh, Nann, why did we come to thisdreadful place? What if that light came right up to this cottage and sawthat it wasn't boarded up and knew someone was here and----"
Nann chuckled. "Aren't you getting rather mixed in your figures ofspeech?" she teased. "A lantern can't see or know, but of course Iunderstand that you mean the-well-er-person carrying the lantern. Isuppose you will agree that it is a person, for ghosts don't have tocarry lanterns, you know."
"How do you know so much about ghosts, since you say there are no suchthings?" Dori flared.
"Well, nothing can't carry a lantern, can it?" was the unruffled reply.Then the two girls were silent, watching the light which seemed now andthen to be held high as though whoever carried it paused at times to lookabout him and then continued to search on the rocks.
Slowly, slowly the light approached the row of boarded-up cabins. Thegirls crept from bed and knelt at the window on the seaward side. Nann,because she was interested, and Dori because she did not want to be leftalone.
"Do you think it's coming this far?" came the anxious whisper. Nann shookher head. "No," she said, "it's going back toward the point and so I'mgoing back to bed. I'm chilled through as it is."
They were soon under the covers and when they again glanced toward thewindow the light had disappeared. "Seems to have been swallowed up," Nannremarked.
"Maybe it's fallen over the cliff. I almost hope that it has, and beenswept out to sea."
"Meaning the lantern, I suppose, or do you mean the carrier thereof?"
"Nann Sibbett, I don't see how you can help being just as afraid ofwhatever it is, or, rather of whoever it is, as I am."
"Because I am convinced that since it, or he, doesn't know of myexistence, I am not the object of the search, so why should I be afraid?Now, Miss Dories Moore, if you wish to stay awake speculating as to whatbecame of that light, you may, but I'm going to sleep, and, if this loftbedroom of ours is just swarming with ghosts and mysterious lights, don'tyou waken me to look at them until morning."
So saying, Nann curled up and went to sleep. Dories, fearing that shewould again be awakened by a light, drew the quilt up over her head sothat she could not see it.
Although she was nearly smothered, like an ostrich, she felt safer, andin time she too slept, but she dreamed of headless horsemen andhollow-eyed skeletons that walked out on the rocky point at midnightcarrying lanterns.
It was nearing dawn when a low whistle outside awakened the girls.
"It's Gibralter Strait, I do believe," Nann declared, at once alert.Then, as she sprang up, she whispered, "Do hurry, Dori. I feel ever sosure that we are this day starting on a thrilling adventure."