"SO YOU HAVE COME BACK!"
Screams and frightened exclamations on the part of the girls followed
the queer manifestations. Even Cousin Jane gave a cry of alarm, and
clung to Betty. In fact, everyone was clinging to some one else, the
table having been deserted at the first alarm.
There was silence for a moment--no, not altogether a silence, for the
noise of the storm indicated that it was not in the least lessening, but
there was comparative quiet in the room, and then again came that
strange bluish, flickering glare, and the metallic clanging sound. Then
there was that startling, hollow groan, that seemed to echo and re-echo
through the deserted house.
"Oh! Oh!" moaned Grace. "This is awful--terrible!"
It was sufficiently terrible there in the darkness, illuminated only by
the lightning, or by that weird blue glare that seemed to come from no
place in particular, but which shone through the whole room--throwing
into 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 startled
nerve 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 to
propound the old question of where a certain Biblical personage was when
the 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 awful
draught in here. Who has the matches?"
It was the most sensible thing she could have said under the
circumstances, 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 have
struck somewhere around here. It hit our barn once, and I noticed
something the same as now. Maybe that put out the lights."
"Well, let's put them in service again," proposed Betty. "I don't like
the 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 would
tremble 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 which
Betty opened. Then, as the cheerful yellow glow shone around them, Amy
cried:
"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 were
sticking in me."
"Gracious! I hope that doesn't happen here!" exclaimed Betty, as she
helped Grace light the other lantern. Then the girls looked at one
another. From the faces they glanced to the table. Nothing there had
been altered, nor had the room changed in appearance.
"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Betty with a sigh of relief. "I was
certainly 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, and
there's no telling when the owner--or owners--may come along. If we've
eaten it all up they can't do any more than make us pay for it, which we
are perfectly willing to do. But if there's some food still left they
might 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 turned
out."
"Oh, well, yes; but this is different," protested Grace. "These hollow
groans--there they go again!" and she clutched Amy's arm so suddenly
that a cracker and herring sandwich the latter was eating went to the
floor.
Indeed there did sound through the deserted house a queer, groaning
noise, as if some one was in distress. Betty gave voice to this
suggestion, 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 from
this terrible place. I'd rather be out in the storm than here!"
"In that rain?" asked Mollie, as they listened to the down-rush of
water. It even drowned the noise of the groans.
"That is only the wind," declared Mrs. Mackson, though she looked over
her shoulder apprehensively. "The wind, moaning down an old chimney, or
in some broken window, and around a corner--I have often heard it that
way."
"You're a comfort, at least," murmured Betty. "But, girls, I really
wonder if it could be anyone in trouble? Someone who took refuge in here
from 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 is
certainly in this place."
"Don't say that!" cried Grace.
"Don't be silly," advised Betty. "Why, of course some one is here, or
has 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 deeply
grateful for it. It stands to reason that some one expected to eat it.
"My theory is that some one, traveling perhaps like ourselves, only
maybe not in an auto, was overtaken by the storm. More provident than we
they 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 of
defiance at Grace, who shuddered, and looked behind her.
"Anyhow they're not here now," went on Betty. "And I don't know but that
it 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 whom
we 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 with
us into the other part of the house. There was where all the
manifestations seemed to come from."
"Well, let's go to the front door and look," proposed Cousin Jane. "That
can do no harm, and really I don't like to think of anyone being in
distress."
"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," declared
Grace. "Come on, if we're going," and she moved toward the door, keeping
close to Betty meanwhile.
"There must have been some one here, or else how did we see the light
which 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's
nice of you, but perhaps not correct."
"Well, you know that electricity does queer things," declared the
chaperone. "It might easily cause flickering lights, though I'm not
saying but that some one has been here--the food proves that."
"Perhaps all the ghost is, after all, is lightning; or some tramp, who
has made this his headquarters," said Betty. "Mr. Lagg would be glad to
know that."
"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 go
there----"
"Don't you dare!" cried Grace.
They were going along the passage by which they had entered. The rain
was not coming down so hard now, and the lightning and thunder were less
frequent. The door was swinging to and fro on its hinges, swayed by the
wind which blew in gusts up and down the passage.
Mollie was in the rear, carrying one lantern, with Betty in the lead
with the other. They had almost reached the outer door, and were eagerly
hoping they would see some friendly passer-by when a noise behind her
caused Mollie to turn quickly. She saw a tall white object in a
proverbially ghostly winding sheet. It had come from a side room.
The thing stretched out two white arms, and hands clutched themselves in
Mollie's long hair, which had come loose and was hanging down her back
in 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 thrust
her into the room. Then the door was slammed shut, a key turned in the
lock, while the white figure turned and fled down the passage, as a
flash of lightning threw its ghostly outlines into weird relief, and a
crash of thunder followed.