THE OLD RUIN AT MIDNIGHT
Never had two girls been more interested and excited than were Dories and
Nann as midnight neared. Of course they neither of them slept a wink nor
had they undressed. Nann had truly prophesied. Dories declared that when
she came to think of it, nothing could induce her to stay alone in that
loft room at midnight, and that if she were to meet a ghost or any other
mysterious person, she would rather meet him in company of Nann, Dick and
Gib.
Every hour after they retired, they crept from bed to gaze out of the
small window which overlooked the ocean. At first the fog was so dense
that they could see but dimly the white line of rushing surf out by the
point of rocks.
“Well, we might as well give up the plan,” Dories announced as it neared
eleven and the sky was still obscured.
But Nann replied that when the moon was full it often succeeded in
dispelling the fog by some magic it seemed to possess, and that she
didn’t intend to go to sleep until she was sure that the boys weren’t
coming. She declared that she wouldn’t miss the adventure for anything.
Dories fell asleep, however, and, for that matter, so, too, did Nann, and
since they were both very weary from the unusual excitement and late
hours, they would not have awakened until morning had it not been for a
low whistle at the back of the cabin.
Instantly Nann sprang up. “That must be Gib,” she whispered. Then added,
jubilantly: “It’s as bright as day. The moon is shining now in all its
splendor.”
In five seconds the two girls had crept down the outer stairway, and as
they tiptoed across the back porch, two dark forms emerged from the
shadows and approached them.
“Hist!” Gib whispered melodramatically, bent on making the adventure as
mysterious as possible. “You gals track along arter us fellows, and don’t
make any noise.”
Then without further parley, Gib darted into the shadow of the woodshed,
and from there crept stealthily along back of the seven boarded-up
cabins.
“What’s the idea of stealing along like this?” Nann inquired when the
wide sandy spaces were reached.
“We thought we’d keep hidden as much as possible,” Dick told her. “For if
that airplane pilot is anywhere around, we don’t want him to get wise to
us.”
“But, of course, he isn’t around,” Dories said. “How could he be? An
airplane can’t fly over our beach without being heard. It would waken us
from the deepest sleep, I am sure.”
They were walking four abreast toward the point which loomed darkly ahead
of them. “I suppose you’re right,” Dick agreed, “but it sort of adds to
the zip of it to pretend we’re going to steal upon that airplane pilot
and catch him at whatever it is that he comes here to do.”
The girls did not need much assistance in climbing the rocks nor in
descending on the side of the cove. Gibralter, as before, removed his
shoes and stockings, waded out to the punt, drew up the anchor and then
returned for the others. The moon had risen high enough in the clear
starlit sky to shine down into the narrow channel in the marsh and, as
the water deepened continually and was flowing inward, it was merely a
matter of steering the flat-bottomed boat, which the boys did easily,
Dick in the stern with an oar while Gib in the bow caught the reeds first
on one side and then on the other, thus keeping the blunt nose of the
punt always in the middle of the creek.
“Sh! Don’t say a loud word,” Gib cautioned, as they reached the curve
where the afternoon before they had run aground.
“Goodness, you make me feel shivery all over,” Dories whispered. “Who do
you suppose would hear if we did speak out loud?”
“Dunno,” Dick replied, “but we won’t take any chances.”
The creek was perceptibly widening and the rising tide carried them along
more swiftly, but still the reeds were high over their heads and so, even
though Dick was standing as he pushed with an oar, he could not see the
old ruin, but abruptly the marsh ended and there, high and dry on a
mound, stood the object of their search, looking more forlorn and haunted
than it had from a distance.
The boys had been about to run the boat up on the mound, when suddenly,
and without a sound of warning, Dick shoved the punt as fast he could
back into the shelter of the reeds from which they had just emerged.
“Why d’y do that?” Gib inquired in a low voice. “D’y see anything that
scared you, kid?”
“I saw it, too!” Dories eyes were wide and startled. “That is, I thought
I saw a light, but it went out so quickly I decided maybe it was the
moonlight flashing on something.”
“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.” Dick moved the punt close to the edge
of the reeds that they might observe the ruin from a safe distance.
“But who could be in there?” Nann wondered. “We have never seen anyone
around except the pilot of the airplane and we have all agreed that he
can’t be here tonight.”
“No, he isn’t!” Dick was fast recovering his courage. “I believe Dories
may have been right Probably it was only reflected moonlight. Perhaps you
girls had better remain in the punt while we fellows investigate.”
“No, indeed, we’ll all go together.” Nann settled the matter. “Now shove
back up to the mound, Dick, and let’s get out.” This was done and the
four young people climbed from the punt and stood for a long silent
moment staring at the ruin that loomed so dark and desolate just ahead of
them.
“Thar ’tis! Thar’s that light agin!” Gib seized his friend’s arm and
pointed, adding with conviction: “Dori was right. It’s suthin’ swingin’
in the wind an’ flashin’ in the moonlight.”
“Gib,” Nann said, “that is probably what the people in Siquaw Center have
seen on moonlight nights.”
“Like’s not!” the red-headed lad agreed. Then stealthily they tiptoed
toward the two tall pillars that stood like ghostly sentinels in front of
the roofless part of the house which had once been the salon.
The side walls were crumbled, but the rear wall stood erect, supporting
one side of the roof which tipped forward till it reached the ground,
although one corner was upheld by a heap of fallen stone.
“I suppose we’ll have to creep beneath that corner if we want to see
what’s under the roof,” Dick said. He looked anxiously at the girls as he
spoke, but Nann replied briskly, “Of course we will. Who’ll lead the
way?”
“Since I have a flashlight, I will,” the city boy offered. “Here, Nann,
give me your lantern and I’ll light it. Then if you girls get separated
from us boys, you won’t be in the dark.”
“Goodness, Dick!” Dories shivered. “What in the world is going to
separate us? Can’t we keep all close together?”
“Course we can,” Gib cheerfully assured her. “Dick kin go in furst, you
girls follow, an’ I’ll be rear guard.”
“You mean I can go in when I find an opening,” the city boy turned back
to whisper. Somehow they just couldn’t bring themselves to talk out loud.
Nann held her lantern high and looked at the corner nearest where a
crumbling wall upheld the roof. “There ought to be room to creep in over
there,” she pointed, “if it weren’t for all that debris on the ground.”
“We’ll soon dispose of that,” Dick said, going to the spot and placing
his flashlight on a rock that it might illumine their labors. The two
boys fell to work with a will tossing away bricks and stones and broken
pieces of plaster.
At last an opening large enough to be entered on hands and knees
appeared. Dick cautioned the girls ta stay where they were until he had
investigated. Dories gave a little startled cry when the boy disappeared,
fearing that the wall or the roof might fall on him. After what seemed
like a very long time, they heard a low whistle on the inside of the
opening. Gib peered under and received whispered instructions from Dick.
“It’s safe enough as far as I can see. Bring the girls in.” And so Dories
crept through the opening, followed by Nann and Gib. Rising to their feet
they found themselves in what had one time been a large and handsomely
furnished drawing-room. A huge chandelier with dangling crystals still
hung from the cross-beams, and in the night wind that entered from above
they kept up a constant low jangling noise. Heavy pieces of mahogany
furniture were tilted at strange angles where the rotting floor had given
way.
“Watch your step, girls,” Dick, in the lead, turned to caution. “See,
there’s a big hole ahead. I’ll go around it first to be sure that the
boards will hold. Aha, yonder is a partition that is still standing. I
wonder what room is beyond that.”
“Look out, Dick!” came in a low terrorized cry from Dories. The boy
turned to see the girl, eyes wide and frightened, pointing toward a dark
corner ahead. “There’s a man crouching over there. I’m sure of it! I saw
his face.”
Instantly Dick swung the flashlight until it illumined the corner toward
which Dories was still pointing. There was unmistakably a face looking at
them with piercing dark eyes that were heavily overhung with shaggy grey
brows.
For one terrorized moment the four held their breath. Even Dick and Gib
were puzzled. Then, with an assumption of bravery, the former called:
“Say, who are you? Come on out of there. We’re not here to harm
anything.”
But the upper part of the face (that was all they could see) did not
change expression, and so Dick advanced nearer. Then his relieved
laughter pealed forth.
“Some man—that,” he said, as he flashed the light beyond the pile of
debris which partly concealed the face.
“Why, if it isn’t an old painting!” Nann ejaculated.
And that, indeed, was what it proved to be. Battered by its fall, the
broken frame stood leaning against a partition.
“I believe its a portrait of that cruel old Colonel Woodbury himself,”
Dories remarked. Then eagerly added, “I do wish we could find a picture
of that sweet girl, his daughter. Ever since Gib told us her story I have
thought of her as being as lovely as a princess. Though I don’t suppose a
real princess is always beautiful.”
“I should say not! I’ve seen pictures of them that couldn’t hold a candle
to Nann, here.” This was Dick’s blunt, boyish way of saying that he
admired the fearless girl.
Gib, having found a heavy cane, was poking around in the piles of debris
that bordered the partition and his exclamation of delight took the
others to his side as rapidly as they could go.
“What have you found, old man?” Dick asked, eagerly peering at a heap of
rubbish.
“Nuther picture, seems like, or leastwise I reckon it’s one.”
Gib busied himself tossing stones and fragments of plaster to one side,
and when he could free it, he lifted a canvas which faced the wall and
turned it so that light fell full upon it.
“Gee-whiliker, it’s yer princess all right, all right!” he averred. “Say,
wasn’t she some beaut, though?”
There were sudden tears in Nann’s eyes as she spoke. “Oh, you poor, poor
girl,” she said as she bent above the pictured face, “how you have
suffered since that long-ago day when some artist painted your portrait.”
“Even then she wasn’t happy,” Dories put in softly. “See that little
half-wistful smile? It’s as though she felt much more like crying.”
“And now she is a woman and over in Europe somewhere with a little girl
and boy,” Nann took up the tale; but Gib amended: “Not so very little.
Didn’t we cal’late that if they’re livin’ the gal’d be about sixteen, an’
the boy eighteen or nineteen?”
“Why, that’s so.” Nann looked up brightly. “When I spoke I was
remembering the story as you told it, and how sad the young mother looked
when she landed from the snow-white yacht and led a little boy and girl
up to this very house to beg her father to forgive her. But I recall now,
you said that was at least ten years ago.”
“What shall we do with this beautiful picture?” Dories inquired. “It
doesn’t seem a bit right to leave it here in all this rubbish, now that
we’ve found it.”
“Let’s take it into the next room,” Dick said; “maybe we’ll find a better
place to leave it.”
They had reached an opening in the rear partition, but the heavy carved
door still hung on one hinge, obstructing their passage.
“We _must_ get through somehow,” Nann, the adventurous, said. “I feel in
my bones that the next room holds something that will help solve the
mystery of the air pilot’s visits.”
Dories held the painting while Nann flashed the light where it would best
aid the boys in removing the debris that held the old door in such a way
that it obstructed their passage into the room back of the salon.
A long half-hour passed and the boys labored, lifting stones and heavy
pieces of ceiling, but, when at last the floor space in front of the
heavy door was cleared, they found that something was holding it tight
shut on the other side.
“Gee-whiliker!” Dick ejaculated, removing his cap and wiping his brow.
“Talk about buried treasure. If it’s as hard to get at as it is to get
through this door, I——”
He was interrupted by the younger girl, who said: “Let’s pretend there is
a treasure behind this door, and after all, maybe there is. Perhaps the
air pilot is a smuggler of some kind and brings things here to hide.”
Dories had made a suggestion which had not occurred to the boys.
“That’s so!” Dick agreed. “But if he gets into the next room, he must
have an entrance around at the back of the ruin. No one has been through
this door since the flood undermined the old house.”
Gib was still trying to open the stubborn door. He put his shoulder
against it. “Come on, Dick, help a fellow, will you?” he sang out.
The boys pushed as hard as they could and the door moved just the least
bit, then seemed to wedge in a way that no further assaults upon it could
effect.
“Whizzle! What if that pilot feller is on the other side holdin’ it. What
if he is?”
“But he couldn’t be,” Nann protested. “We all agreed long ago that he
couldn’t be here because how could he arrive in the airplane without
being heard?”
“I know what I’m a-goin’ to do,” Gib’s expression was determined. “I’m
a-goin’ to smash a hole in that ol’ door and crawl through.”
Dick sprang to get a heavy stone from one of the crumbling side walls and
Gib, having procured another, the two boys began a battering which soon
resulted in a loud splintering sound and one of the heavy panels was
crashed in.
Gib wiggled his way through and Dick handed him the searchlight. “Huh,
we’re bright uns, we are!” came in a muffled voice from the other room.
“Thar’s as much rubbish a holdin’ the door on this side as thar was on
the other, but I, fer one, jest won’t move a stick o’ it.”
“No need to!” Nann said blithely. “Make that hole a little bigger and we
can all go through the way you did.”
This was quickly done and the boys assisted the two girls through the
opening. Then they stood close together looking about them as Dick
flashed the light. The room was not quite as much of a wreck as the salon
had been. In it a mahogany table stood and the chairs with heavily carved
legs and backs had been little harmed. With a little cry of delight, Nann
dragged Dories toward an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard. “Don’t you
love it?” she said enthusiastically, turning a glowing face toward her
companion. “Wouldn’t you adore having it?” But before Dories could voice
her admiration, Dick, having looked at his watch, exclaimed:
“Gee-whiliker, I’ll have to beat it if I am to catch that early train
back to Boston. I hate to break up the party.” He hesitated, glancing
from one to the other.
“Of course you must go!” Nann, the sensible, declared. “There’s another
week-end coming.” Then turning to her friend, who was still holding the
picture, she said: “Dori, let’s leave the painting of our princess
standing on the old mahogany sideboard.” When this had been done, she
addressed the picture: “Good-bye, Lady of the Phantom Yacht. Keep those
sweet blue eyes of yours wide open that you may tell us what mysterious
things go on in this old ruin while we are away.”
The pictured eyes were to gaze upon more than the pictured lips would be
able to tell.