Phil seized the ax. "We can run for our lives once the door is open. I believe we have been sent to save this person."
"All right, Phil. I won't turn coward unless you do." Madge picked up a sharp stick to pry under the door.
Phil had struck her first blow when Madge, whose ears were open to every sound, cried sharply: "Stop! There is some one coming. Do let's run!"
Phil dropped her axe as softly as possible. Then she and Madge took to their heels. They ran through the thicket of trees, back behind a dense growth of underbrush. They had never run so fleetly or so silently before. A single glance had revealed the figures of two men approaching the prison-house from the beach. Not for worlds would the girls have been discovered hammering at their door. They had crossed the island to ask for succor. They needed friends. Suppose these men had seen them trying to break into their house? They might have been taken for common thieves. Madge and Phil were quick to repent of their foolishness. They had not come forth on their long pilgrimage to save a man locked up in a hut; they had come to find aid for Miss Jenny Ann and the other girls.
It was almost dark when they made their way back to their packs, which they had left under a tree. They made a fire, fried their fish, and ate their supper.
Then they swung their hammock in the branches of a great, low-armed sycamore tree. Neither was afraid, though the night was dark and they were far from their lodge, which to-night seemed like home. They were too weary to lie awake. By the time the stars were out they had crawled into their hammock together and covered themselves with their blanket. All night long they slept serenely, the good fairies keeping watch over them.
THE DISAPPOINTED KNIGHTS
Not long after daylight the two girls were out of their hammock bed. But they waited until a reasonable hour before they approached the house in the woods to ask for assistance. Then they walked back to the place cautiously and quietly. To their relief they saw an old gypsy woman stirring something in a pot by an open fire. A young boy was busily cleaning some fish.
The explorers walked directly up to the boy, who did not turn or take the slightest interest in their approach. But when Phyllis touched him on the arm he whirled about, dropped his fishing knife, and gave a queer, guttural call.