“I suppose they wanted to call her something that meant darling,” Dories began, but Nann put in eagerly with, “Oh, Gib, do go on. What happened next? Did the old Colonel go somewhere and get a fast boat and overtake the yacht. I do hope that he didn’t.”
“Wall, than yo’ get what yer hopin’ fer, all right. About a week arter he’d took the early mornin’ train along back came the ol’ Colonel, Pa said, an’ he looked ten year older. He didn’t s’plain nothin’, but gave Pa some money fer takin’ keer o’ his horse while he’d been gone, an’ then back he came here to his house an’ lived shut in all by himself an’ his man-servant for nigh ten year, Pa said. Nobody ever set eyes on him; his man-servant bein’ the only one who came to the store for mail an’ supplies, an’ he never said nuthin’, tho Pa said now an’ then he’d ask if Darlina’d been heard from. He knew when he’d ask, Pa said, as how he wouldn’t get any answer, but he couldn’t help askin’; he was that interested. But arter a time folks around here began to think morne’n like the Phantom Yacht, as Pa’d called it, had gone to the bottom before it reached wherever ’twas they’d been headin’ fer, when all of a sudden somethin’ happened. Gee, but Pa said he’d never been so excited before in all his days as he was the day that somethin’ happened. It was ten year ago an’ Pa’d jest had a letter from yer aunt—” the boy leaned over to nod at Dori, “askin’ him to go to the Point an’ open up her cottage as she’d built the summer before. Thar was only two cottages on the shore then; hers an’ the Burtons’, that’s nearest the point. Pa said as how he thought he’d get down thar before sun up, so’s he could get back in time to open up the store, bein’ as Ma wan’t well, an’ so he set off to walk to the beach.
“Pa said he was up on the roof of the front porch takin’ the blind off thet little front window in the loft whar yo’ girls sleep when the gray dawn over to the east sort o’ got pink. Pa said ’twas such a purty sight he turned ’round to watch it a spell when, all of a sudden sailin’ right around that long, rocky island out thar,whatshould he see but the Phantom Yacht, her white sails glistening as the sun rose up out o’ the water. Pa said he had to hold on, he was so sure it was a spook boat. He couldn’t no-how believe ’twas real, but thar came up a spry wind wi’ the sun an’ that yacht sailed as purty as could be right up to the long dock whar the sailors tied it. Wall, Pa said he was so flabbergasted that he fergot all about the blind he was to take off an’ slid right down the roof and made fer a place as near the long dock as he could an’ hid behind some rocks an’ waited. Pa said nothin’ happened fer two hours, or seemed that long to him; then out of that yacht stepped the mos’ beautiful young woman as Pa’d ever set eyes on. He knew at onct ’twas the ol’ Colonel’s daughter growed up. She was dressed all in white jest like she’d used to be, but what was different was the two kids she had holdin’ on to her hands. One was a boy, Pa said, about nine year old, dressed in black velvet wi’ a white lace color. Pa said he was a handsome little fellar, but ’twas the wee girl, Pa said, that looked like a gold and white angel wi’ long yellow curls. She was younger’n the boy by nigh two year, Pa reckoned. Their ma’s face was pale and looked like sufferin’, Pa said, as she an’ her children walked up to the sea wall and went up over the stone steps thar was then to climb over it. Pa knew they was goin’ on up to the house, but from whar he hid he couldn’t see no more, an’ so bein’ as he had to go on back to open up the store, he didn’t see what the meetin’ between the ol’ Colonel an’ his daughter was like. How-some-ever it couldn’t o’ been very pleasant, fer along about noon, Pa said he recollected as how he had fergot to take off the blind on yer aunt’s cottage, an’ knowin’ how mad she’d be, he locked up the store an’ went back down to the beach, an’ the first thing he saw was that glistenin’ white yacht a-sailin’ away. The wind had been gettin’ stiffer all the mornin’ an’ Pa said as he watched the yacht roundin’ the island, it looked to him like it was bound to go on the shoals an’ be wrecked on the rocks. Whoever was steerin’ Pa said, didn’t seem to know nothin’ about the reefs. Pa stood starin’ till the yacht was out of sight, an’ then he heard a hollerin’ an’ yellin’ down the beach, an’ thar come the ol’ man-servant runnin’ an’ stumblin’ an’ shoutin’ to Pa to come quick.
“‘Colonel Wadbury’s took a stroke!’ was what he was hollerin’, an’ so Pa follered arter him as fast as he could an’ when they got into the big library-room, whar all the books an’ pictures was, Pa saw the ol’ Colonel on the floor an’ his face was all drawed up somethin’ awful. Pa helped the man-servant get him to bed, and fer onct the man-servant was willin’ to talk. He told Pa all that had happened. He said how Darlina’s furrin husband had died an’ how she wanted to come back to America to live. She didn’t ask to live wi’ her Pa, but she did want him to give her the deed to a country place near Boston. It ’pears her ma had left it for her to have when she got to be eighteen, but the ol’ Colonel wouldn’t give her the papers, though they was hers by rights, an’ he wouldn’t even look at the two children; he jest turned ’em all right out, and then as soon as they was gone, he tuk a stroke. ’Twan’t likely, so Pa said, he’d ever be able to speak again. The man-servant said as the last words the ol’ Colonel spoke was to call a curse down on his daughter’s head.
“Wall, the curse come all right,” Gibralter nodded in the direction of the crumbling ruin, “but ’twas himself as it hit.
“You’ll recollect awhile back I was mentionin’ that folks in Siquaw Center had warned ol’ Colonel Wadbury not to build a hefty house on shiftin’ sand that was lower’n the sea. Thar was nothin’ keepin’ the water back but a wall o’ rocks. But the Colonel sort o’ dared Fate to do its worst, and Fate tuk the dare.
“When November set in, Pa says, folks in town began to take in reefs, so to speak; shuttin’ the blinds over their windows and boltin’ ’em on to the inside. Gettin’ ready for the nor’easter that usually came at that time o’ year, sort o’ headin’ the procession o’ winter storms. Wall, it came all right; an’ though ’twas allays purty lively, Pa says that one beat all former records, and was a howlin’ hurricane. Folks didn’t put their heads out o’ doors, day or night, while it lasted, an’ some of ’em camped in their cellars. That thar storm had all the accompaniments. Thar was hail beatin’ down as big and hard as marbles, but the windows, havin’ blinds on ’em, didn’t get smashed. Then it warmed up some, and how it rained! Pa says Noah’s flood was a dribble beside it, he’s sure sartin. Then the wind tuk a turn, and how it howled and blustered. All the outbuildin’s toppled right over; but the houses in Siquaw Center was built to stand, and they stood. Then on the third night, Pa says, ’long about midnight, thar was a roarin’ noise, louder’n wind or rain. It was kinder far off at first, but seemed like ’twas comin’ nearer. ‘That thar stone wall’s broke down,’ Pa told Ma, ‘an’ the sea’s coverin’ the lowland.’
“Wall, Pa was right. The tide had never risen so high in the memory of Ol’ Timer as had been around these parts nigh a hundred years. The waves had banged agin that wall till it went down; then they swirled around the house till they dug the sand out an’ the walls fell jest like yo’ see ’em now.
“The next mornin’ the sky was clear an’ smilin’, as though nothin’ had happened, or else as though ’twas pleased with its work. Pa and Gus Pilsley an’ some other Siquaw men made for the coast to see what the damage had been, but they couldn’t get within half a mile, bein’ as the road was under water. How-some-ever, ’bout a week later, the road, bein’ higher, dried; but the water never left the lowlands, an’ that’s how the swamp come all about the old ruin—reeds and things grew up, just like ’tis today.
“Pa and Gus come up to this here point an’ looked down at what was left of the fine stone house. ‘’Pears like it served him right,’ was what the two of ’em said. Then they went away, and the ol’ place was left alone. Folks never tried to get to the ruin, sayin’ as the marsh around it was oozy, and would draw a body right in.”
“But what became of old Colonel Wadbury and the man-servant?” Dories inquired.
“Dunno,” the boy replied, laconically. “Some thar be as guess one thing, and some another. Ol’ Timer said as how he’d seen two men board the train that passes through Siquaw Center ’long ’bout two in the mornin’, but Pa says the storm was fiercest then, and no trains went through for three days; and who’d be out to see, if it had? Pa thinks they tried to get away an’ was washed out to sea an’ drowned, an’ I guess likely that’s what happened, all right.”
Dories rose. “We ought to be getting back.” She glanced at the sun as she spoke. “Aunt Jane may be needing us.” The other two stood up and for a moment Nann gazed down at the ruin; then she called to it: “Some day I am coming to visit you, old house, and find out the secret that you hold.”
Dories shuddered and seemed glad to climb down on the side of the rocks where the sun was shining so brightly and from where one could not see the dismal swamp and the crumbling old ruin.
As they walked along the hard, glistening beach, Nann glanced over the shimmering water at the gray, forbidding-looking island in the distance, almost as though she thought that the Phantom Yacht might again be seen sailing toward the place where the dock had been. “Poor Darlina,” she said turning toward the others, “how I do hope that she is happy now.”
“Cain’t no one tell as to that, I reckon,” Gib commented, when Dories asked: “Gibralter, how long ago did all this happen? How old would that girl and boy be now?”
“Pa was speakin’ o’ that ’long about last week,” was the reply. “He reckoned ’twas ten year since the Phantom Yacht sailed off agin with the mother and the two little uns. That’d make the boy, Pa said, about nineteen year old he cal’lated, an’ the wee girl about fifteen.”
“Then little Darlina would be about our age,” Dories commented.
“Why do you think that her name would be the same as her mother’s?” Nann queried.
“O, just because it is odd and pretty,” was Dories’ reason. Then, stepping more spryly, she said: “I do hope Aunt Jane has not been awake long, fretting for her breakfast. We’ve been gone over two hours I do believe.”
“Gee!” Gib exclaimed, looking around for his horse. “I’ll have ter gallop as fast as the ol’ colonel did that thar night I was tellin’ yo’ about or Pa’ll be in my wool. I’d ought to’ve had the milkin’ done this hour past. So long!” he added, bolting suddenly between two of the boarded-up cottages they were passing. “Thar’s my ol’ steed out by the marsh,” he called back to them.
The girls entered the kitchen very quietly and tiptoed through the living-room hoping that their elderly hostess had not yet awakened, but a querulous voice was calling: “Dories, is that you? Why can’t you be more quiet? I’ve heard you prowling around this house for the past hour. Going up and down those outside stairs. I should think you would know that I want quiet. I came here to rest my nerves. Bring my coffee at once.”
“Yes, Aunt Jane,” the girl meekly replied. Then, darting back to the kitchen, she whispered, her eyes wide and startled, “Nann, somebody has been in this house while we’ve been away. I do believe it was that—that person we saw at midnight carrying a lantern. Aunt Jane has heard footsteps creaking up and down the stairs to our room.”
Nann’s expression was very strange. Instead of replying she held out a small piece of crumpled paper. “I just ran up to the loft to get my apron,” she said, “and I found this lying in the middle of our bed.”
On the paper was written in small red letters: “In thirteen days you shall know all.”
“I have nine minds to tell Aunt Jane that the cabin must be haunted and that we ought to leave for Boston this very day,” Dories said, but her companion detained her.
“Don’t, Dori,” she implored. “I’m sure that there is nothing that will harm us, for pray, why should anyone want to? And I’m simply wild to know, well, just ever so many things. Who prowls about at midnight carrying a lighted lantern, what he is hunting for, who left this crumpled paper on our bed, and what we are to know in thirteen days; but, first of all, I want to find a way to enter that old ruin.”
Dories sank down on a kitchen chair. “Nann Sibbett,” she gasped, “I believe that you are absolutely the only girl in this whole world who is without fear. Well,” more resignedly, “if you aren’t afraid, I’ll try not to be.” Then, springing up, she added, for the querulous voice had again called: “Yes, Aunt Jane, I’ll bring your coffee soon.” Turning to Nann, she added: “We ought to have a calendar so that we could count the days.”
“I guess we won’t need to.” Nann was making a fire in the stove as she spoke. “More than likely the spook will count them for us. There, isn’t that a jolly fire? Polly, put the kettle on, and we’ll soon have coffee.”
Dories, being the “Polly” her friend was addressing, announced that she was ravenously hungry after their long walk and climb and that she was going to have bacon and eggs. Nann said merrily, “Double the order.” Then, while Dories was preparing the menu, she said softly: “Nann, doesn’t it seem queer to you that Great-Aunt Jane can live on nothing but toast and tea? Of course,” she amended, “this morning she wishes toast and coffee, but she surely ought to eat more than that, shouldn’t you think?”
“She would if she got out in this bracing sea air, but lying abed is different. One doesn’t get so hungry.” Nann was setting the kitchen table for two as she talked. After the old woman’s tray had been carried to her bedside, Dories and Nann ate ravenously of the plain, but tempting, fare which they had cooked for themselves. Nann laughed merrily. “This certainly is a lark,” she exclaimed. “I never before had such a good time. I’ve always been crazy to read mystery stories and here we are living one.”
Dories shrugged. “I’m inclined to think that I’d rather read about spooks than meet them,” she remarked as she rose and prepared to wash the dishes.
When the kitchen had been tidied, the two girls went into the sun-flooded living-room, and began to make it look more homelike. The dust covers were removed from the comfortable wicker chairs and the pictures, that had been turned to face the walls while the cabin was unoccupied, were dusted and straightened.
“Now, let’s take a run along the beach and gather a nice lot of drift wood,” Nann suggested. “You know Gibralter told us that this is the time of year when the first winter storm is likely to arrive.”
Dories shuddered. “I hope it won’t be like the one that wrecked Colonel Wadbury’s house eight years ago. If it were, it might undermine all of these cabins, and, how pray, could we escape if the road was under water?”
“Oh, that isn’t likely to happen,” Nann said comfortingly. “Our beach is higher than that lowland. It it does, we’d find a way out, but, Dories, please don’t be imagining things. We have enough mystery to puzzle us without conjuring up frightful catastrophes that probably never will happen.”
Dories stopped at her aunt’s door to tell her their plans, but the old woman was either asleep or feined slumber, and so, tiptoeing that she might not disturb her, the girl went out on the beach, where Nann awaited her. They were hatless, and as the sun had mounted higher, even the bright colored sweater-coats had been discarded.
“It’s such a perfect Indian summer day,” Nann said. “I don’t even see a tiny, misty cloud.” As she spoke, she shaded her eyes with one hand and scanned the horizon.
“Isn’t the island clear? Even that fog bank that we saw early this morning has melted away.” Then, whirling about, Dories inquired, “Nann, if we should see something white coming around that bleak gray island, what do you think it would be?”
“Why, the Phantom Yacht, of course.”
“What would you do, if it were?”
“I don’t know, Dori. I hadn’t even thought of the coming of that boat as a possibility, and yet—” Nann turned a glowing face, “I don’t know why it might not happen. That little woman, for the sake of her children, might try a second time to win her father’s forgiveness. If she came, what a desolate homecoming it would be; the old house in ruin and the fate of her father unknown.”
For a moment the two girls stood silent. A gentle sea breeze blew their sport skirts about them. They watched the island with shaded eyes as though they really expected the yacht to appear. Then Nann laughed, and leaping along the beach, she confessed: “I know that I’ll keep watching for the return of the Phantom Yacht just all of the while. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.” Then, as she picked up a piece of whitening driftwood, she asked, “Dori, would you rather have the glistening white yacht appear in the sunrise or in the moonlight?”
Dories had darted for another piece of wood higher up the warm beach, but, on returning, she replied: “Oh, I don’t know; either way would make a beautiful picture, I should think.” Then, after picking up another piece, she added: “I’d like to meet that pretty gold and white girl, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe we will,” Nann commented, then sang out: “Do look, Dori, over by the point of rocks, there is ever so much driftwood. I believe that will be enough to fill our wood shed if we carry it all in. I’ve always heard that there are such pretty colors in the flames when driftwood burns.”
The girls worked for a while carrying the wood to the shed; then they climbed up on the rocks to rest, but not high enough to see the old ruin. When at length the sun was at the zenith, they went indoors to prepare lunch, and again the old woman asked only for toast and tea.
After a leisurely noon hour, the girls returned to their task; there really being nothing else that they wanted to do, and, as Nann suggested, if the rains came they would be well prepared. For a time they rested, lying full length on the warm sand, and so it was not until late afternoon that they had carried in all of the driftwood they could find.
“Goodness!” Dories exclaimed, shudderingly, as she looked down at her last armful. “Doesn’t it make you feel queer to know that this wood is probably the broken-up skeleton of a ship that has been wrecked at sea?”
“I suppose that is true,” was the thoughtful response. They had started for the cabin, and a late afternoon fog was drifting in.
Suddenly Nann paused and stared at the one window in the loft that faced the sea. Her expression was more puzzled than fearful. For one brief second she had seen a white object pass that window. Dories turned to ask why her friend had delayed. Nann, not wishing to frighten the more timid girl, stooped to pick up a piece of driftwood that had slipped from her arms.
“I’m coming, dear,” she said.
On reaching the cabin, Nann went at once to the room of the elderly woman, who had told them in the morning that she intended to remain in bed for one week and be waited on. There she was, her deeply-set dark eyes watching the door when Nann opened it and instantly she began to complain: “I do wish you girls wouldn’t go up and down those outside stairs any oftener than you have to. They creaked so about ten minutes ago, they woke me right up.” Then she added, “Please tell Dories to bring me my tea at once.”
Nann returned to the kitchen truly puzzled. It was always when they were away from the cabin that the aunt heard someone going up and down the outside stairway. What could it mean? To Dories she said, in so calm a voice that suspicion was not aroused in the heart of her friend, “While you prepare the tea for your aunt, I’ll go up to the loft room and make our bed before dark.”
Dories had said truly, Nann Sibbett seemed to be a girl without fear.
Nann half believed that the white object she had seen at the loft window was but a flashing ray of the setting sun reflected from the opposite window which faced the west, and yet, curiosity prompted her to go to the loft and be sure that it was unoccupied. This resolution was strengthened when, upon reaching the cabin, she heard Miss Moore’s querulous voice complaining that the outer stairs leading to the room above had been creaking constantly, and she requested the girls not to go up and down so often while she was trying to sleep. Nann, knowing that they had not been to their bedroom since morning, was a little puzzled by this, and so, bidding Dories prepare tea for her great-aunt, she went out on the back porch and started to ascend the stairway. When the top was reached, she discovered that the door was locked. For a puzzled moment the girl believed that the key was on the inside, but, stopping, she found that she could see through the keyhole. Although it was dusk, the window in the loft room, which opened toward the sea, was opposite and showed a faint reflection of the setting sun. Nann was relieved but still puzzled, when a whispered voice at the foot of the stairway called to her. Turning, Nann saw Dories standing in the dim light below, holding up the key. “Did you forget that we brought it down?” she inquired.
As Nann hurriedly descended, she noticed that the stairs did not creak, nor indeed could they, for each step was one solid board firmly wedged in grooves at the sides.
“I believe that we are all of us allowing our imaginations to run away with us, Miss Moore included,” Nann said as she returned to the kitchen. Then added, “Instead of making our bed now, I will clean the glass lamps and fill them with the oil that Gibralter brought while it is still twilighty.”
This she did, setting briskly to work and humming a gay little tune.
It never would do for Nann Sibbett, the fearless, to allow her imagination to run riot.
Before the lamps were ready to be lighted, the fog, which stole in every night from the sea, had settled about the cabin and the fog horn out beyond the rocky point had started its constantly recurring, long drawn-out wail.
“Goodness!” Dories said, shudderingly, “listen to that!”
“I’m listening!” Nann replied briskly. “I rather like it. It’s so sort of appropriate. You know, at the movies, when the Indians come on, the weird Indian music always begins. Now, that’s the way with the fog.”
She paused to scratch a match, applied the flame to the oil-saturated wick of a small glass lamp and stood back admiringly. “There, friend o’ mine,” she exclaimed, “isn’t that cheerful?”
Dories, instead of looking at the circle of light about the lamp, looked at the wavering shadows in the corners, then at the heavy gray fog which hung like curtains at the windows. She huddled closer to the stove. “If this place spells cheerfulness to you,” she remarked, “I’d like to know what would be dismal.”
Nann whirled about and faced her friend and for a moment she was serious.
“I’m going to preach,” she threatened, “so be prepared. I haven’t the least bit of use in this world for people who are mercurial. What right have we to mope about and create a dismal atmosphere in our homes, just because we can’t see the sunshine. We know positively that it is shining somewhere, and we also know that the clouds never last long. I call it superlative selfishness to be variable in disposition. Pray, why should we impose our doleful moods on our friends?”
Then, noting the downcast expression of her friend, Nann put her arms about her as she said penitently, “Forgive me, dear, if I hurt your feelings. Of course it is dismal here and we could be just miserable if we wanted to be, but isn’t it far better to think of it all as an adventure, a merry lark? We know perfectly well that there is no such thing as a ghost, but the setting for one is so perfect we just can’t resist the temptation to pretend that——”
Nann said no more for something had suddenly banged in the loft room over their heads.
Dories sat up with a start, but Nann laughed gleefully. “You see, even the ghost knows his cue,” she declared. “He came into the story just at the right moment. He can’t scare me, however,” Nann continued, “for I know exactly what made the bang. When I was upstairs I noticed that the blind to the front window had come unfastened, and now that the night wind is rising, the two conspired to make us think a ghost had invaded our chamber.” Then, having placed a lighted lamp on the kitchen table and another on a shelf near the stove, the optimistic girl whirled and with arms akimbo she exclaimed, “Mistress Dori, what will we have for supper? You forage in the supply cupboard and bring forth your choice. I vote for hot chocolate!”
“How would asparagus tips do on toast?” This doubtfully from the girl peering into a closet where stood row after row of bags and cans.
“Great!” was the merry reply. “And we’ll have canned raspberries and wafers for desert.”
It was seven when the meal was finished and nearly eight when the kitchen was tidied. Nann noticed that Dories seemed intentionally slow and that every now and then she seemed to be listening for sounds from above. Ignoring it, however, Nann put out the light in one lamp and, taking the other, she exclaimed, “The earlier we go to bed, the earlier we can get up, and I’m heaps more interested in being awake by day than by night, aren’t you, Dori? Are you all ready?”
Dories nodded, preparing to follow her friend out into the fog that hung like a damp, dense mantle on the back porch. But, as soon as the door was opened, a cold, penetrating wind blew out the flame. “How stupid of me!” Nann exclaimed, backing into the kitchen and closing the door. “I should have lighted the lantern. Now stand still where you are, Dori, and I’ll grope around and find where I left it after I filled it. Didn’t you think I hung it on the nail in the corner? Well, if I did, it isn’t there. Get the matches, dear, will you, and strike one so that I can see.”
But that did not prove to be necessary, as a sudden flaming-up of the dying fire in the stove revealed the lantern standing on the floor near the oil can. Nann pounced on it, found a match before the glow was gone, and then, when the lantern sent forth its rather faint illumination, they again ventured out into the fog.
All the way up the back stairway Dories expected to hear a bang in the room overhead, but there was no sound. She peered over Nann’s shoulder when the door was opened and the faint light penetrated the darkness. “See, I was right!” Nann whispered triumphantly. “The blind blew shut and the hook caught it. That’s why we didn’t hear it again.”
“Let’s leave it shut,” Dories suggested, “then we won’t be able to see the lantern out on the point of rocks if it moves about at midnight.”
Nann, realizing that her companion really was excitedly fearful, thought best to comply with her request, and, as there was plenty of air entering the loft room through innumerable cracks, she knew they would not smother.
Too, Dories wanted the lantern left burning, but as soon as Nann was sure that her companion was asleep, she stealthily rose and blew out the flickering flame.
It was daylight when the girls awakened and the sun was streaming into their bedroom. Nann leaped to her feet. “It must be late,” she declared as she felt under her pillow for her wristwatch. She drew it forth, but with it came a piece of crumpled yellow paper on which in small red letters was written, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
Dories luckily had not as yet opened her eyes and Nann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her back toward her companion. For a moment she looked into space meditatively. Should she keep all knowledge of that bit of paper to herself? She decided that she would, and slipping it into the pocket of her sweater-coat, which hung on a chair, she rose and walked across the room to gaze at the door. She remembered distinctly that she had locked it. How could anyone have entered? Not for one moment did the girl believe that their visitor had been a ghostly apparition that could pass through walls and locked doors.
“Hmm! I see,” she concluded after a second’s scrutiny. “I did lock the door, but I removed the key and put it on the table. A pass-key evidently admitted our visitor.” Then, while dressing, Nann continued to soliloquize. “I wonder if the person who walks the cliff carrying the lantern was our visitor. Perhaps it’s the old Colonel himself or his man-servant who hides during the day under the leaning part of the roof, but who walks forth at night for exercise and air, although surely there must be air enough in a house that has only one wall.”
Having completed her toilet, she shook her friend. “If you don’t wake up soon, you won’t be downstairs in time for breakfast,” she exclaimed.
Dories sat up with a startled cry. “Oh, Nann,” she pleaded. “Don’t go down and leave me up here alone, please don’t! I’ll be dressed before you can say Jack Robinson, if only you will wait.”
“Well, I’ll be opening this window. I want to see the ocean.” As Nann spoke, she lifted the hook and swung out the blind, then exclaimed:
“How wonderfully blue the water is! Oho, someone is out in the cove with a flat-bottomed boat. Why, I do believe it is our friend Gibralter. Come to think of it, he did say that he had been saving his money for ever so long to buy what he calls a sailing punt.”
Nann leaned out of the open window and waved her handkerchief. Then she turned back to smile at her friend. “It is Gib and he’s sailing toward shore. Do hurry, Dori, let’s run down to the beach and call to him.”
Tiptoeing down the flight of stairs, the two girls, taking hands, scrambled over the bank to the hard sand that was glistening in the sun.
The boy, having seen them, turned his boat toward shore, and, as there was very little wind, he let the sail flap and began rowing.
The tide was low and there was almost no surf.
“Want to come out?” he called as soon as he was within hailing distance.
“Oh, how I wish we could,” Nann, the fearless, replied, “but we have duties to attend to first. Come back in about an hour and maybe we’ll be ready to go.”
“All right-ho!” the sea breeze brought to them, then the lad turned into the rising wind, pulled in the sheet and scudded away from the shore.
“That surely looks like jolly sport,” Nann declared as, with arms locked, the two girls stood on a boulder, watching for a moment. Then, “We ought to go in, for Great-Aunt Jane may have awakened,” Dories said.
When the girls tiptoed to the chamber on the lower floor, they found Miss Moore unusually fretful. “What a noisy night it was,” she declared, peevishly. “I came to this place for a complete rest and I just couldn’t sleep a wink. I don’t see why you girls have to walk around in the night. Don’t you know that you are right over my head and every noise you make sounds as though it were right in this very room?”
“I’m sorry you were disturbed, Aunt Jane,” Dories said, but she was indeed puzzled. Neither she nor Nann had awakened from the hour that they retired until sunrise.
When the girls were in the kitchen preparing breakfast, Dories asked, “Nann, do you think that Great-Aunt Jane may be—I don’t like to say it, but you know how elderly people do, sometimes, wander mentally.”
“No, dear,” the other replied, “I do not think that is true of your aunt.” Then chancing to put her hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat, and feeling there the crumpled paper, Nann drew it out and handed it to Dories.
“Why, where did you find it?” that astonished maiden inquired when she had read the finely written words, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
“Under my pillow,” was the reply, “and so you see who ever leaves these messages has no desire to harm us, hence there is no reason for us to be afraid. At first I thought that I would not tell you, but I want you to understand that your Great Aunt Jane may have heard footsteps over her head last night, even though we did not awaken.”
“Well, if you are not afraid, I’ll try not to be,” Dories assured her friend, but in her heart she knew that she would be glad indeed when the twelve days were over.
Later when Dories went into her aunt’s room to remove the breakfast tray, she bent over the bed to arrange the pillows more comfortably. Then she tripped about, tidying the room. Chancing to turn, she found the dark, deeply sunken eyes of the elderly woman watching her with an expression that was hard to define. Jane Moore smiled faintly at the girl, and there was a tone of wistfulness in her voice as she said, “I suppose you and Nann will be away all day again.”
“Why, Aunt Jane,” Dories heard herself saying as she went to the bedside, “were you lonely? Would you like to have me stay for a while this morning and read to you?”
Even as she spoke she seemed to see her mother’s smiling face and hear her say, “The only ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving deeds left undone and kind words that might have been spoken.” As yet Dories had not even thought of trying to do anything to add to her aunt’s pleasure. She was gratified to see the brightening expression. “Well, that would be nice! If you will read to me until I fall asleep, I shall indeed be glad.”
Nann, who had come to the door, had heard, and, as the girls left the room, she slipped an arm about her friend, saying, “That was mighty nice of you, Dori, for I know how much pleasanter it would be for you to go for a boat ride with Gibralter. I’ll stay with you if you wish.”
“No, indeed, Nann. You go and see if you can’t find another clue to the mystery.”
“I feel in my bones that we will,” that maiden replied as she poured hot water over the few breakfast dishes. “It would be rather a good joke on—well—on the ghost, if we solved the mystery sooner than twelve days. Don’t you think so?”
“But there are so many things that puzzle us,” Dories protested. “I wish we might catch whoever it is leaving those messages. That, at least, would be one mystery solved.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Nann said brightly. “Let’s put on our thinking caps and try to find some way to trap the ghost tonight. Well, good-bye for now! Gib and I will be back soon, I am sure. I’m just wild to go for a little sail with him in his queer punt boat.”
Dories stood in the open front door watching as her friend ran lightly across the hard sand, climbed to a boulder and beckoned to the boy who was not far away.
With a half sigh Dories went into her aunt’s room. Catching a glimpse of her own reflection in a mirror she was surprised to behold a fretful expression which plainly told that she was doing something that she did not want to do in the least. She smiled, and then turning toward the bed, she asked, “What shall I read, Aunt Jane?”
“Are there any books in the living room?” the elderly woman inquired. The girl shook her head. “There are shelves, but the books have been removed.”
There was a sudden brightening of the deeply sunken eyes. “I recall now,” the older woman said, “the books were packed in a box and taken up to the loft. Suppose you go up there and select any book that you would like to read.”
For one panicky moment Dories felt that she must refuse to go alone to that loft room which she believed was haunted. She had never been up there without Nann.
“Well, are you going?” The inquiry was not impatient, but it was puzzled. “Yes, Aunt Jane, I’ll go at once.” There was nothing for the girl to do but go. Taking the key from its place in the kitchen, she began to ascend the outdoor stairway. How she did wish that she were as fearless as Nann.
The door opened when the key turned, and Dories stood looking about her as though she half believed that someone would appear, either from under the bed or from behind the curtains that sheltered one corner.
There was no sound, and, moreover, the loft room was flooded with sunlight. The box, holding the books, was readily found. Dories approached it, lifted the cover and was about to search for an interesting title when a mouse leaped out, scattering gnawed bits of paper. Seizing the book on top, Dories fled.
“What is the matter?” her aunt inquired when, almost breathless, the girl entered her room.
“Oh—I—I thought it was—but it wasn’t—it was only a mouse.”
“Of course it was only a mouse,” Miss Moore said. “I sincerely hope that a niece of mine is not a coward.”
“I hope not, Aunt Jane.” Then the girl for the first time glanced at the book she held. The title was “Famous Ghost Stories of England and Ireland.”
“Very entertaining, indeed,” the elderly woman remarked, as she settled back among the pillows, and there was nothing for Dories to do but read one hair-raising tale after another. Often she glanced at her wrist-watch. It was almost noon. Why didn’t Nann come?
When Gibralter saw Nann crossing the wide beach that was shimmering in the light of the early morning sun, he turned the punt boat and sailed as close to the point of rocks as he dared go. Then, letting the sail flap, he took the oars and was soon alongside a large flat boulder which, at low tide, was uncovered, although an occasional wave did wash over it.
“Quick! Watch whar ye step,” he cautioned. “Thar now. Here’s yer chance. Heave ho.” Then he added admiringly as the girl stepped into the middle of the punt without losing her balance, “Bully fer you. That’s as steady as a boy could have done it. Whar’s the other gal? Was she skeered to come?”
Nann seated herself on the wide stern seat of the flat-bottomed boat before she replied. “Dori wanted to come just ever so much, but she thought that she ought to stay at home this morning and read to her Great-Aunt Jane.”
“Wall, I don’t envy her none,” the lad said as he stood up to push the boat away from the rocks. “That ol’ Miss Moore is sure sartin the crabbiest sort o’ a person seems like to me.” Then as he sat on the gunnel and pulled on the sheet, he added, beaming at the girl, “Say, Miss Nann, are ye game to sail over clost to the island yonder? Like’s not we’d find the skeleton o’ The Phantom Yacht if it got wrecked thar, as Pa thinks mabbe it did.”
“Oh, Gib,” the girl’s voice expressed real concern, “I do hope that beautiful snow-white yacht was not wrecked. I don’t believe that it was. I feel sure that those sailors took it safely back across the sea with that poor heart-broken mother and the boy who was such a handsome little chap, and the wee gold and white girl whom your daddy said looked like a lily. Honestly, Gib, I’d almost rather not sail over to that cruel island where so many boats have gone down. If the Phantom Yacht is there, I’d rather not know it. I’d heaps rather believe that it is still sailing, perhaps on the blue, blue waters of the Mediterranean.”
The boy looked his disappointment. “I say, Miss Nann,” he pleaded, “come on, say you’ll go, just this onct. I’m powerful curious to see what the shoals look like. I’ve been savin’ and savin’ for ever so long to buy this here punt boat jest so’s I could cruise around over thar. Miss Nann, won’t you go?”
The girl laughed. “Gibralter, you look the picture of distress. I just can’t be hard-hearted enough to disappoint you. If you’ll promise not to wreck me, I’ll consent to go at least near enough to see just what the island looks like.”
With that promise the boy had to be content. A brisk breeze was blowing from the land and so, before very long, the two and a half miles that lay between the shore and the outer shoals were covered and the long gaunt island of jagged gray rocks loomed large before them.
“The shoals’ll come up, sudden-like, clost to the top of the water, most any time now,” Gib said, “so keep watchin’ ahead. If you see a place whar the color’s different, sort o’ shallow lookin’, jest sing out an’ I’ll pull away.”
Nann, thrilling with the excitement of a new adventure, looked over the side of the punt and into water so deep and dark green that it seemed bottomless, but all at once they sailed right over a sharp-pointed rock. Then another appeared, and another.
“Gib!” the girl’s cry was startled, “you’d better stop sailing now and take the oars, slowly, for if we hit a rock, way out here, and capsize, pray, who would there be to save us?”