"What a joke!" said Jack, standing close to the window; "that's the way the ghost went up and down, then. Hush! who in the world is that? There's somebody in white creeping among the rhododendron bushes. I'm off. Cooee, cooee!"
The Australian cry sounded weird enough, and I gasped for breath as I saw Jack's figure disappear at full speed among the rhododendrons. An instant afterwards there was a scream, and then dead silence.
CHAPTER VII.
The Mysterious Visitor.
If any one had told me I was a coward, I should have been very indignant, and I think rightly so; but I must confess that I lay and trembled, as I looked through the open window, and wondered who had screamed and what was the matter. The steps in the wall, the white figure skulking among the bushes, and finally the scream; was that not enough material wherewith to make a very nice little chapter of horrors? Never had I so much regretted my helplessness. If I had only been able to walk, nothing would have prevented my going upstairs and telling Rupert that I thought Jack had got into trouble; as it was, I could only exercise my brains for some other way to let him know.
Mother came in just then, and exclaimed at my white face. That was the best thing that could have happened. I made her promise not to get Jack into further trouble, and then I told her all about it. She went into the garden at once, and found him lying on the ground writhing with pain, with his foot caught in a man-trap, which he had himself found in the loft the day before, and put in the path out of mischief, and then forgotten to remove it.