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.
CHAPTER X.
SOUNDS IN THE LOFT
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!”