“Neither am I! Isn’t it thrilling?”
“It may be too much so,” said Ruth grimly.
They sat and talked in the now silent Corner House until the boys came back. Mrs. MacCall, Linda, and Uncle Rufus had gone to bed, for Ruth told them she would lock up after the boys had gone home.
“I guess we’re all set for the play,” announced Luke as he and the other two boys returned. “It lacks a little of midnight, but I fancy Hop Wong will be a little early. We’ll go down first and hide ourselves away. Don’t worry if you don’t see us, for it wouldn’t do to show ourselves to the laundryman. But we’ll be close to you.”
“All right,” said Ruth. “We’ll follow you in about five minutes.”
And at the end of that time, when the three girls went into the garden and walked toward the apple tree, bathed as it was in moonlight, there was not a sign of the boys, not so much as loud breathing. Yet Ruth knew Luke would not fail her.
For several minutes the girls waited under the tree. There was no sound but the night wind. The situation was growing tense, and Agnes said later that it was all she could do to keep from giggling hysterically.
Suddenly there was a hiss coming with fierce energy out of the darkness.
“Oh—a snake!” gasped Nalbro. “I’m going to——”
Whether she was about to announce that she would faint or run no one knew, for a moment later the voice of Hop Wong called: