STOP
Suddenly something, it seemed like a shadow, crossed the window outside.
If Peter's little room had been downstairs he might have thought that a
spectre of the night was passing. He looked up, startled, dumbfounded.
And while he gazed the tall dusky apparition passed back across the
window again.
Half frightened and very curious he raised the little sash and looked
out. The night was dark but the sky was filled with stars. Not a light
of man's making was there in all the country roundabout. He concentrated
his gaze along the back road and tried to pick out the spot where
Peace-justice Fee's house was, thinking that perhaps some sign
thereabout would furnish the key to this ghostly mystery. But there was
not the faintest twinkle there, nor any sound of life. Only solemn,
unanswering darkness. Somewhere in the woods a solitary screech owl was
hooting its discordant song.
"Is--is--anybody here?" Peter asked, his voice shaking. There was no
answer, nothing but silent, enveloping darkness.
Peter groped behind him for the old piece of broomstick which propped
the window open, and with this in place, he leaned far out and gazed
toward the little graveyard where his father and his grandfather and all
the simple forbears of the lonely neighborhood had gone to their rest.
Not a sound was there in that solemn little acre. He strained his eyes
and tried to identify the place by Deacon Small's tall, white tombstone,
but he could not make it out.
Suddenly, just above that silent, hallowed little area, a tall gray
thing appeared, then disappeared as suddenly.
Peter trembled, yet gazed in fascination. He was fearful of he knew not
what. Yet he could not withdraw his eyes from that spot. Had
someone--some _thing_ from that little graveyard come to his window and
gone back again to its musty rest? Was it--_could_ it be--?
Hardly had he the chance to think and conjure up some harrowing fear,
when the dusky column appeared again, then disappeared, then appeared
again. Then darkness.
Whatever put it into Peter Piper's head he never know, but quick like
those very flashes occurred to him the very words that he had been
saying over and over to himself but a few minutes before--saying over
and committing to memory. "Three dots or flashes--S, three dots or
flashes--S, three dots or flashes--"
Again it arose, that ghostly apparition, and filled the dark sky above
the little graveyard. This time it remained for one, two, three, four
seconds.
Peter's hand trembled now from a new kind of excitement, as he groped
behind him for his one poor scout possession, the handbook. Then he
reached for the lamp, but the night wind blew it out just as the tall
thing came again, and stayed for several seconds.
Peter groped for the little box of safety matches which always lay near
the lamp. These were the chief ornaments of his little room, the lamp
and the safety matches. He held a match close over page two hundred and
eighty-four while he divided his gaze between this and the next
lingering visitation of that strange, long, shadowy thing over the
graveyard. He struck match after match, as each blew out. Yes, that was
what three short flashes meant--S. And one long flash meant T.
Suppose--_suppose_ there should be three _long_ appearances now? That
would be O. Were these signs, expressed in ghostly strangeness, just the
figments of Peter's excited imagination? Just the Morse Code haunting
him and coloring his fancy? He put his finger on the black symbol on the
page and waited.
--Two--three--then a pause.
S--T--O
His finger held upon the page trembled as he lighted another match and
still another and moved his finger to another printed symbol on the
page. And the long, dusty column over beyond the graveyard, came and
went, now for a second, now for several, now for several again, then for
one short second.
"STOP!" said Peter, his voice shaking as if indeed some ghostly spectre
were upon him. Somebody, somebody was talking to him! Some scout, in
real khaki attire, out in the great world?
Peter did not know where to place his waiting finger next. A mighty hand
had been raised in the black, solemn night, and had said _Stop_. Had
sprawled it across the open page of the heaven. Peter waited, as one
waits for a spirit to give some sign. He kept his eyes riveted upon the
general service code, lighting match after match and throwing them on
the floor as the fickle things went out. Some day, _some day, maybe_,
Peter would have a _real_ flashlight with a switch button, a flashlight
of shiny nickel that he could polish, such a flashlight as he had seen a
picture of in _Boy's Life_. A flashlight that would not blow out.
Sometime he would--maybe....