Silence followed the terrific clap of thunder—a silence almost as
startling as the noise which had preceded it. And then the rain came
down in torrents.
It was as if that awful blast had opened the flood-gates of heaven and
let down the waters accumulated there for ages past. A pelting, driving,
overwhelming storm it was, punctuated by intermittent flashes of
lightning and rumbling thunder.
But, as if that were not enough, the condition of the three
children—woebegone, dirty and on the verge of tears—was enough to cause
a disturbance.
“What has happened? What is going to happen?” murmured Ruth, for once,
at least, feeling that her nerves were going to give way.
It was Agnes who saved the situation. Having gained her own equilibrium,
she turned to Nalbro and asked:
“What do you think of the Corner House now? Isn’t it an ideal place? So
quiet and restful!”
And as she asked this Dot burst into tears and wails, which made her
inquiry seem all the more contrasting.
But Nally let out a peal of jolly laughter and exclaimed:
“I just love it! It’s so different!”
“Yes, it’s different, all right!” chuckled Neale.
“Well, now that we’re at least all here, whole and not in pieces,” said
Ruth, “perhaps we can have some explanation of what it is all about—I
mean what you children have been doing,” she explained. “First, though,
is any one hurt?”
“I ain’t,” declared Sammy Pinkney.
“You shouldn’t say ‘ain’t,’ Sammy,” remarked Tess primly, intent on
improving her playmate notwithstanding the noise and confusion all about
her.
“I aren’t hurt, but I is scared,” announced Dot.
At this Hal and Luke laughed in glee, at which Dot looked a little hurt.
Neale, however, was a great comfort, as usual, for he looked gravely at
her and said:
“Never mind, Dotums. Almost any one would be scared.”
“Well, I know something else Sammy shouldn’t do,” said Agnes, after the
laughter subsided. “And that is to have that old smelly lantern in here.
It’s bad enough when the windows are open, but when they’re all closed
it’s terrible. Blow it out, Sammy, do!”
The candle in the cigar box was making a smudge, and Sammy obligingly
extinguished it.
“Now let’s have the story,” suggested Ruth.
While the storm raged outside the children told how they had conceived
the idea of searching in the cellar for buried treasure—the treasure of
Hop Wong and the two men.
“But what makes you think there is treasure in our cellar?” asked Ruth.
“Because,” was all Tess or Dot would say.
As for Sammy, he only pointed to the girls. This was a case of shifting
the blame, it seemed.
By degrees, however, it was drawn out of the trio how Tess had put this
and that together, and had, in a way, added what she had overheard
concerning the Chinaman and the two tramps. Thus she had arrived at the
decision that there must be a store of gold in the cellar of the Corner
House. She had then taken Dot and Sammy into her confidence.
“And we dug and dug, but we didn’t find any,” reported Tess. “We were in
the back part of the cellar, where it’s awfully dark, when we heard a
noise. We ran and we knocked down something that fell on the swinging
shelf, and that fell down and——”
“It’s a mercy you weren’t all cut by the broken glass jars!” exclaimed
Ruth. “I suppose the cellar’s a sight!” she sighed.
“Oh, it isn’t so bad as if the jars had been filled with fruit,”
chuckled Luke. “There’s a lot of broken glass, it’s true, but glass jars
are cheap. It might have been worse.”
“Indeed, yes, if the children had been hurt,” agreed Ruth.
A close inspection showed no damage beyond what soap and water would
remedy. Then, as the household settled down to a more normal state of
existence, preparations were made for getting supper, and more details
of the searching expedition of Tess, Dot and Sammy were drawn out while
the storm raged.
“What sort of noise was it you heard that made you run? You said you
knocked down something that broke the swinging shelf, didn’t you?” asked
Ruth, when Mrs. MacCall and Linda were preparing the evening meal.
“Oh, it was just a noise,” replied Tess, vaguely. Ruth’s evident
idea—evident, at least, to the older ones—was to learn if any attempt
had been made by Hop Wong or the two strange men to enter the cellar
under cover of the approaching storm.
“But can’t you tell me what sort of noise?” persisted Ruth.
“It was—now, it was a noisy noise!” exclaimed Sammy, with a triumphant
air.
And he wondered why some of them laughed.
“Never mind, Sammy,” said Neale consolingly, “most noises are noisy. And
that’s the sort of noise that annoys an oyster, if I remember the joke
aright.”
“If you get off any more old ones like that,” threatened Hal, “we’ll
sentence you to stand out in the rain and sing a song.”
“And it’s some rain!” murmured Luke.
Indeed, though the first fury of the storm was over, culminating, it
seemed, in that one terrific crack, there was now a steady downpour
which seemed likely to last all night.
“Sammy, you’d better stay here to supper,” said Ruth, when the meal was
nearly ready. “I’ll telephone over to your mother to say you’re all
right.”
“Oh, I guess she knows I’m all right,” Sammy announced, with cheerful
irresponsibility.
“I’ll make sure,” Ruth declared.
It was still thundering and the lightning was flashing when she
approached the instrument.
“Don’t go near it!” cried Agnes.
“Why not?” Ruth asked.
“It’s always dangerous in a thunder storm to go near a telephone! Keep
away!”
But Ruth was one not easily frightened. Though after she had got her
connection with the Pinkney house and had relieved his mother’s feelings
by saying that Sammy would remain where he was for the present, Ruth
leaped back as a loud clicking from the telephone indicated some sort of
electrical disturbance on the wire.
“There! What did I tell you?” cried Agnes.
“No harm done,” Ruth replied.
It was almost time for the meal to be served when Luke arose, took Neale
by the arm, and started for the hall, saying:
“Well, we’ll bid you young ladies good-evening.”
“What?” cried Agnes.
“You aren’t going—not in all this storm!” objected Ruth.
“I didn’t hear you invite us to supper,” returned Luke with a simulated
injured air. “And you didn’t offer to telephone to Grantham and say I
was all right.”
“Or to Con Murphy,” added Neale, with a serious face.
“Silly!” murmured Ruth. “Of course you boys will stay. Stay all night,
if you like. We have plenty of room.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” agreed Neale, looking out of the window,
down the panes of which little streams of rain were running. “What say,
Luke?”
“I’m with you! It looks like a good imitation of the original flood
outside.”
“You really would have to go around; you couldn’t climb the back fence
in this storm. Yes, you’ll have to stay,” put in Agnes.
“Then we’ll have a jolly evening of it!” cried Hal. Perhaps he thought
three girls to one youth was all out of proportion.
Indeed, now that they were all safe within doors there was no need to
worry about the storm. The members of the picnic party congratulated
themselves that they had left the lake and grove in time to escape the
outburst of the elements.
It was an intermittent sort of storm, and there would be lulls in it
when it seemed about to stop. The rain would almost cease and the
thunder die away, while the flashes of lightning would hardly be
noticeable.
Then, with a suddenness that was appalling, would come a crash of
thunder which would shake the house, and the lightning preceding it
would crackle and snap on the electric-light wires.
Sometimes the rain would decrease to a mere drizzle, and again it would
pelt down as if about to bore through the roof.
But the Corner House was stanch—Uncle Peter Stower had seen to that—and
not a drop entered.
Supper was a jollier meal with all the company present, than otherwise
would have been the case.
But to storm and conversation alike Sammy Pinkney was seemingly deaf. He
paid strict attention to the affair in hand, which affair consisted in
getting outside as much food as possible. Neither thunder, lightning nor
rain disturbed Sammy.
As Neale observed him clean off plate after plate, which Linda filled,
Agnes’ chum could not help remarking:
“Treasure hunting makes you hungry, doesn’t it, Sammy?”
“Sure!” Sammy answered, not lifting his eyes from the piece of pie.
“I only hope he isn’t made ill,” murmured Ruth.
“Doesn’t thunder or lightning or something have some effect on food or
something?” asked Agnes.
“You’re thinking of lightning turning milk sour, I guess,” answered
Neale.
“Perhaps,” agreed Agnes.
After the meal they went into the sitting room and sat about talking,
the late treasure-hunt, among other topics, being discussed. Ruth had
just gone to the telephone again to tell Mrs. Pinkney that Sammy could
remain all night if the storm did not cease when a series of queer
happenings began.
The first was a sudden dimming of the electric lights. They had been
glowing brightly when, all at once, they went from a white brightness to
a dull red in their vacuum globes.
“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth. “I hope we aren’t going to be left in darkness. We
took out most of the gas. I must see if Linda has any candles.”
“I can light my cigar-box lantern,” offered Sammy.
“Thank you—no!” protested Agnes. “I’d rather sit in darkness than be
smothered.”
“It’s only the lightning,” said Neale. “The lights always go down when a
big flash comes.”
As he spoke the lights went dim again, but they all noted that this
happened when the storm was comparatively quiet. There was no thunder
and no lightning.
“How do you account for that?” asked Nalbro, nervously.
“Trouble in the power house,” said Luke promptly.
“Well, maybe,” Nally conceded.
The house was comparatively quiet for a while, though the storm kept up,
and Ruth had just returned from putting the children to bed—Sammy, to
his delight being given a room to himself—when Nalbro called:
“Some one’s at the telephone!”
“I didn’t hear the bell ring,” said Hal.
“No. But listen! Hear that clicking?”
They all heard a peculiar tapping in the receiver, as when one is
connected with a “busy” wire.
“Maybe it’s off the hook,” suggested Luke.
He went to look, and when he came back to report that the instrument was
as it should be, they all looked one at the other.
“There it is again!” exclaimed Agnes.
Once more the clicking sounded.
“I’ll ask Central what it is,” volunteered Neale.
He started toward the instrument, but at that moment there came almost
as terrific a crash of thunder as the one that opened the storm.
“Neale!” screamed Agnes. “Keep away from that telephone!”
“There’s no danger,” he asserted, his voice sounding strangely loud in
the quiet that succeeded the booming of the thunder.
Then, again the lights went dim—so low as almost to go out—and there
came a gasp of fear even from Ruth.
“Do you suppose the house was struck?” she asked in a whisper of Luke.
“Nonsense! If it had been we’d all know it. Lightning isn’t that gentle
when it strikes.”
At that moment a clock somewhere in the Corner House softly gave the
hour of midnight. And almost as if it had been timed for that weird and
spookish hour there came, from the cellar, seemingly, a strange sound—a
sound of a heavy fall, followed by a moan.