“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.