This call out of the darkness was uncanny. From whom could it have come? Madge and Phyllis knew that it must have been sent by the man who was shut up in the house on the farther side of the island.
The girls looked at one another questioningly. "What can we do, Miss Jenny Ann?" asked Phil anxiously.
"Nothing," Miss Jenny Ann responded in a tone that was final.
"Please allow us to write a note, then, and send it back by this boy?" pleaded Madge. "Think how dreadful to be shut up somewhere without a sign from the outside world. I'll just say that we are sorry we can not come to rescue this person, as we have no way of helping him, and that we don't know who he is. It wouldn't be any harm to say that we hope some one else will come to save him, would it, Phil?"
Miss Jenny Ann smiled over Madge's letter, but offered no objection to it.
The boy seemed quite satisfied. Just as he turned to leave, Phyllis called him back.
It occurred to her that she might ask the lad some questions about the mysterious prisoner whom he was trying to befriend, probably at the risk of his own life.
Phil wrote the word, "MAN?" The boy nodded. Then she put down, "OLD?" The youth shook his head violently.
"Ask the boy if the man is crazy, Phil."
Phil printed the word, "crazy," but the boy did not understand. The word was too large to be included in his vocabulary. She tried, "mad," and he bowed his head repeatedly. He frowned, walked up and down the room and stamped his foot.