“The coast seems to be clear,” said Archie, walking to the parapet and looking cautiously over, “and we had better be off. It isn’t more than fifteen or twenty feet to the ground, and we can hang by our hands and drop without much danger of injuring ourselves.”
“Be careful,” said Frank. “A sprained ankle wouldn’t be a funny thing, just now.”
The boys jumped upon the wall, and were on the point of swinging themselves over, when an interruption they had not dreamed of arrested their movements. Frank’s quick ear caught the faint tramping of horses’ hoofs. He laid his hand upon his cousin’s arm, and they sprang back to the roof, and concealed themselves behind the parapet.
“Something is always bothering us,” said Archie, straining his eyes through the darkness in the direction from which the sound came. “What’s up now, I wonder!”
If Frank had known just what was about to transpire, he could not have described it in less time than the scene occupied in taking place. While Archie was speaking, the sound of the horses’ hoofs ceased, and a faint light, like that emitted by a match, blazed up in the bushes on the opposite side of the creek. The signal (for the boys were sure it was a signal) was repeated twice, and then arose a commotion in the house, as if men were running hurriedly about. This continued for a few seconds, and then a flatboat suddenly made its appearance in the creek. Where it came from, the boys could not imagine; but there it was, and there was a man in it, who was sculling it toward the opposite bank.
“By—gracious!” whispered Archie, in great excitement. “We are going to witness the very scene that frightened old Bob so badly.”
“But Bob must have been dreaming,” answered Frank. “He said the boat was ferried across without hands, and that man is using an oar.”
Our heroes were too deeply interested in what was going on to continue the conversation. Archie pulled off his sombrero, and pushed back his sleeves, as if he were preparing for a trial of strength with somebody, while Frank settled himself into a comfortable position behind the parapet, after the manner of a boy who had selected his favorite book from the library, and seated himself in an easy chair to enjoy it. They kept a sharp lookout, for they were determined that not even the smallest incident should escape their notice. They had an opportunity now to learn the secret of these strange doings, and, when they were over, they would know as much about them as Don Carlos himself.
At the same moment that the flatboat appeared, the boys heard the grating noise below them, and suddenly the banks of the creek and the woods, for two hundred yards around, which had been shrouded in darkness an instant before, were flooded with light.