Nancy could not keep from trembling slightly as she heard the car
panting at a little distance and realized that perhaps a moment of real
danger was near, in spite of their joking. Elinor, too, felt very much
like giving away to a few tremors, but she reproached herself for such
weak behavior and held her body as rigid as a stone image while she said
sternly in her mind:
"My knees are not at all weak. It's only the position I am lying in that
makes them feel queer."
A sound as though a heavy foot had been placed on the step outside was
heard and then a voice which Billie recognized as that of the one-eyed
man said:
"Well, young lady, I suppose you have had about enough of this? We have
kept our word, you see, which I judge you found on the paper, as you are
still here."
There was a short silence. Evidently Charlie nodded assent to the
supposition and the motion gave full satisfaction, for the voice went
on, "Has any one been around, miss? You didn't hear the sound of any
voices, did you, while we were gone? We saw some people in the field as
we left. Did they come this way? Speak up, miss."
Not a heart on the attic floor but thumped as the one-eyed man asked
these questions. They had never thought of Charlie's voice, which was
about as deep as a full grown man's!
A perfectly death-like stillness reigned for a moment. It was plain that
Charlie was not going to trust his voice.
"Do not be frightened, Señorita," put in the thin man. "You may speak
without fear. Do not weep. Perhaps she did see something. It was not the
ghost of the dead man who hanged himself in here, was it?" he added in a
low voice.
"Hold your tongue," said the other man. "Speak up, young woman. Have you
no voice left? You'll not have strength enough to run the car if you go
on like this."
A deep sob reached the ears of the listeners overhead.
Then the alarming thought came to Ben: How was Charlie to run the motor
car in case the men insisted on his leaving first? Plainly, it was
necessary to get rid of these men somehow. Then they would all make a
dash, and he would crank up while Billie jumped in and started the car.
"I'll have to hear the sound of your voice before I go," insisted the
one-eyed man. "I want to hear you give me your sacred word of honor to
keep this little loan of your car a secret. If we find that you have
told, and we'll know it if you have, you and your family will regret it,
that's all. We know how to take our revenge, don't we, Pedro? So speak
up, young woman, and say the words. I promise----"
Another deep sob.
"Come, come. Hold up your head and let me see your face. Say, Pedro,
look here; it doesn't seem quite the same as it did half an hour ago,
somehow. Strike a light!"
There was great but noiseless commotion in the attic! What if the men
should lift Charlie's veil!
Since Mary had mentioned "The Musicians of Bremen" an idea had been
forming in Ben's mind and he now hastily communicated it in a low
whisper to his neighbor who passed it quickly down the line.
Just as the thin man outside exclaimed in a high sharp tone, "Why, it's
a boy!" Ben whispered, "Ready!"
Immediately the attic was filled with a pandemonium of noise,--the
barking of a dog, cries, and screams! It was a truly terrifying
combination, Mary's shrill shriek rising weirdly above the other sounds
as though from one in mortal agony.
The two men outside were startled in spite of themselves and dashed away
on an uncontrollable impulse, the thin man shouting, "The ghost of the
dead man! His evil spirit haunts us!"
"Good work, Ben," called Charlie softly, after a moment. "Come out,
quick! They've gone around back of the house. You can come this way, but
hurry!"
The adventure had been so exciting and was so quickly over that the
girls hardly realized where they were when they found themselves in
front of the house, standing in a half-bewildered group in the deepening
twilight.
"Nobody shall take any more chances for my motor car," whispered Billie.
"You have all risked your lives enough as it is, and I'm deeply
grateful. The men may be around there by the machine, so let's make a
break for the fields and go straight home."
"No," replied Ben stoutly; "it would be best for you girls to get away,
but Charlie and I will finish the job. Those fellows are cowards, any
way, and----"
"But you can't run the car," said Billie, rapidly putting on her things,
which Charlie had discarded with a sigh of relief. "I'll have to stay.
The other girls must go, though."
The discussion, however, was ended by Charlie, who had skipped off to
reconnoiter and now appeared running at full speed around the side of
the house.
"Come on, let's all go," he said. "They've gone, but they might come
back."
Without a word, the others followed him and jumped into the car, while
Ben, who knew a little about motors, began to crank up the machine.
Suddenly a voice spoke out of the darkness:
"This looks like a nice little party. Get out of that car, every one of
you, or I'll shoot," and the sinister looking one-armed man, who
appeared to have sprung up from the earth, stood at the side of the
automobile with his pistol pointed straight at Billie. "Did you
imagine," he continued, "that a parcel of children could fool a man like
me?"
There was no reply to the question. Mary and Nancy were so limp with
fear they could not have lifted a little finger if there had been a
dozen pistols pointing at them. Elinor might have slipped a ramrod down
her back, so stiffly and proudly did she hold herself in that fearful
moment. Billie had turned white as a sheet, but she still had strength
enough left to make a move to get out when Ben, whose stubborn nature
would not even now give up the fight, raised his overgrown, boyish
figure from the ground where he had been kneeling, and with a quick
motion pressed a piece of glittering steel to the man's forehead.
"Drop that pistol, or you're a dead man," he said in the deepest chest
tones he could produce. His voice was still in the tenor stage.
Not even a gentleman of fortune who had lost an eye and an arm in past
dangerous adventures could quite keep from shrinking at this extremely
unpleasant sensation produced by cold steel against his face, and
without a word of protest he dropped the pistol in the road.
"Now, back off," said Ben, "and don't stop until you get as far as that
tree over there."
The man retreated, cursing under his breath, and in another instant they
were off in the dark.
"We forgot to pick up his pistol," exclaimed Charlie, as three shots
rang out in quick succession.
"But Ben has one," said Billie, feeling somehow that she had known these
nice brave boys for a long time, instead of three-quarters of an hour.
"That was only a monkey wrench," answered Charlie, laughing.
And Billie was moved with admiration and respect for the slow-speaking,
quiet boy, who had twice in so short a time outwitted two very dangerous
and experienced adventurers.
It was a splendid ride in the darkness. The fresh salt air swept their
faces and set their blood to tingling with a new enjoyment. They had
just been through a most dangerous and exciting experience, these young
people, and Nancy and Mary were not ashamed to admit that they at least
had been very much frightened. But people who have lived always by the
sea are used to looking danger calmly in the face.
Half a mile beyond the quiet little harbor of West Haven a lighthouse
stood on a small, rocky promontory, and from the shore on a calm day
could be seen rows of sharp-pointed rocks thrust out of the water like
great black teeth waiting to devour any chance ship which might be blown
against them. In bad weather the water about the Black Reefs, as they
were called, was lashed and churned into fury and sometimes after a
great storm groups of people might be seen hurrying up the cliff path to
the life-saving station, while out in the ocean, stuck fast to the teeth
of the Black Reefs was a pretty three-masted schooner, perhaps, or a
stained and scarred old freight ship, looking very small and helpless in
its terrible plight.
Billie, herself, was the only person in the motor car who had not seen a
shipwreck on the Black Reefs. She had never even seen one of the
September storms when the sea rolled itself into mountainous waves and
dashed against the cliffs of West Haven.
As they neared the town, Billie slowed down the motor and turned to
speak to her new friends.
"I can't even try to thank all of you for what you have done for me, but
I want to tell you that I think you are the bravest, nicest boys and
girls in the whole world, and it was just to be with you that I came
back to West Haven to go to school. I was very unhappy to-day because I
was afraid that Nancy and Mary and Elinor had forgotten me and the
splendid times we had together one summer when I was a little girl----"
"Oh, Billie, we hadn't forgotten you," broke in Nancy. "We thought when
you joined Belle Rogers' crowd that you----"
"But I didn't join them," Billie interrupted, laughing. "They kidnapped
me and never let me out of their sight the whole time. I had almost made
up my mind to write to papa to let me go to boarding school, after all.
I wanted to know some real girls. I have never had a chance before, you
know, and when I talked it over with papa, we decided that all of you
were the nicest real girls we had ever known, and I just thought I would
spend the winter with Cousin Helen and meet you again, while papa was in
Russia."
The three girls blushed with pleasure at this gratifying compliment.
"We were just as glad to see you, too, Billie," said Elinor. "It was all
a foolish mistake. But we shall be friends now, and you must join the
Blue Birds. It's the Sophomore Club, and we have lots of fun."
"Thank you, I'd love to," answered Billie, as gratefully and modestly as
if she had been paid the highest honor in the land. "I've been
thinking," she added, "that we'd better keep all this business about
these men secret. You know Cousin Helen; if she hears about it, we'll
probably have to store the motor car. She'll never let me out of her
sight again."
"We'll keep it secret," cried the others in a chorus.
So this very sensational adventure, which would certainly have spread
like wildfire through the town of West Haven once it got out, remained a
profound secret.
Some good came of it, however, since it served to unite four old
friends. But we have not seen the last of the mysterious individuals who
borrowed Billie's motor car.