The Academy through the trees.
CHAPTER XVIII
A SPILLED PITCHER
Littlefield crept into Melvin’s bed that night with a sense of security that he had not felt for weeks, and was soon in a deep, restful sleep. Melvin undressed in his own room, and then slipped across the hall in pajamas to the little Prep’s room, turned on the electric light, and surveyed the field. His first act was to clear away the lighter furniture, so as to leave an open space about the window at which the disturbance was wont to occur. Then he filled two pitchers with water and placed them in convenient positions, one close to the corner of the bed, the other against the wall opposite. When this was done, he adjusted the window-sashes after the usual arrangement, and at the top of the lower sash, in the corner nearest the bed, fastened a nail. To this he attached one end of a string, and taking the other end with him as he jumped into bed, he drew it tight and tied it to his finger.
“Now if I can only keep my hand quiet,” he thought as he lay down, “any movement of the window ought to rouse me; but I suppose I shall begin to roll as soon as I am asleep, and get the string loose, or wake myself a dozen times for nothing. I’ll give it a trial, anyway.”
Healthy and unworried, Dick fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. In his sleep he turned slightly in bed and threw one arm above his head, so that the pressure of the cord on his finger made itself felt. The pressure occasioned a dream, and the dream at length brought him back to consciousness. He seemed to be struggling vainly to free himself from one of the gymnasium rings, to which he was hanging by a single finger. He squirmed and twisted and strove to cast it off, but despite his struggles the ring still clung to the finger, and the finger still clutched the ring. He awoke with a frightened start, relieved to discover that he was free from the ugly predicament, yet still under the spell of the vague terror of the vision. With quickened breath and straining ears, he listened to make sure there was no other reason for his waking. Except for the distant, labored puffing of a night freight, as it worked its way through the edge of the town, the silence was absolute.
Muttering reproaches to himself for the undefined dread that crept into his heart as he felt the depressing influence of the darkness and quiet, and the solitary waiting for an unknown assailant, he turned over and settled himself once more in a comfortable position for sleeping. The rumbling of the ponderous train died gradually away in the distance, leaving a stillness unnatural and oppressive.
“I don’t wonder that the little chap’s nerves are unstrung,” thought Dick. “I can feel my heart throb all over my body.”