It suddenly came to her this was Don's voice, with his exaggerated Maryland drawl. Her heart beat fast.
Another voice answered: "Watch yourself, Jones. Those damn birds 'll raise the dead if you lay hand to them!"
"On'y one squawk before I get her neck wrung," laughed Don. "I got the lay of the land. That white-washed fence yonder marks the garden. Run down the rows to the next fence and you're safe!"
A silence followed. Pen, straining her ears heard, or imagined that she heard the latch softly raised, the door opened, and the little pan softly moved inside. Then Don's voice again:
"By Golly! It's empty!"
The words were spoken in the conventional tones of disappointment but Pen and none but Pen could hear the thrilling little lift in his voice. She was assured that the note was tight clasped in his hands. The voices moved away.
Pen cautiously consulted her watch. It was half-past ten. She must start at once in order to keep her appointment, for she must take a roundabout and difficult way. Pendleton's snores were resounding through the house, and in the back hall where the light could not betray her out-of-doors, she lit a little lamp and arrayed herself. She had a black cotton servant's dress that had been designed to fit a more ample figure than hers. She put it on and stuffed it out with old cotton until her own shape was altered beyond recognition. Drawing her hair straight back from her face, she twisted it into a tight knot behind, and pulled the sunbonnet over her head. For the dark it was a sufficiently effective disguise.
It was still very dark out of doors. Slipping out of the back door, she made her way to the old paddock behind the house grounds, and gaining the road from here, climbed a fence on the other side and struck across the little triangular field for the woods. It was the way she had gone once before to meet Don. Forcing her way through the undergrowth she gained her own path and so reached the little temple. From this point she struck out a line that would bring her out on the Bay shore. The sound of the waves guided her. When she had gone a little way she began to catch glimpses of the Broome's Point light between the tree trunks, and that gave her an exact course.
But this part of the woods was densely grown up, and it was hard, slow going. She had to feel her way through the tangle, and the thorns scratched her hands and tore her dress. She put her foot into unsuspected holes and came down heavily. It was only a couple of hundred yards, but she could progress but a foot at a time. It seemed as if an age passed before she slid down the steep bank and gained the sand. From around the point she heard six bells sounded melodiously aboard the Alexandra, and broke into a run. The tide was falling, and there was firm hard footing along the water's edge.
The lighthouse stood on its spidery stilts only a hundred feet or so off the beach. As she came close Pen could make out old Weems Locket the keeper, standing on the little gallery that encircled his octagonal house, with a companion. She slowed down. The two were leaning on the rail looking out across the Bay, smoking cigars. Even if they had looked in her direction they could scarcely have seen her, for her black dress was lost against the bushes that bordered the sand. There was a fresh breeze off the water that swallowed sounds. The first narrow edge of a smoky, orange moon was rising out of the Bay.