“There is no occasion to be frightened, Brandy. Say your prayers, and nothing will happen to you or to me.”
“O, I pray, sah, fo’ true. I pray all de time you away; but I dreffully aflaid all de same.”
The moon would not rise to-night till past twelve, and there was little likelihood of the creature visiting the orange grove before then.
But soon after ten o’clock Tom, with revolver in belt, left the hut, and betook himself across the plain to the little grove of trees where the now unburied skeletons lay.
The tree that overshadowed the place afforded ample room for concealment, so he climbed well up and sat down to watch.
Would the ghoul appear?
How very long the time seemed!
The silence was intense to-night, for not a breath of air was stirring among the leaves. The moan of the restless sea was distinctly audible. And at intervals strange voice-sounds came from the woods, and from the lonesome far-off hills; sounds that perhaps birds or beasts emitted, and which it was difficult to locate exactly, for at times they appeared to come from the very sky itself. But they made Tom feel very eerie, and more than once he repented of his rashness, and wished he had not undertaken so lonely a vigil.
At long last the moon rose red and rosy over the mountains, and soon its light glimmered through the orange trees and fell in patches on and around the grave.
Tom placed his hand on his revolver, and sat on his perch as silent as the leaves themselves.