“Just a few minutes more,” Arthur begged. “Maida, please tell us a story.”
“Once upon a time,” Maida began obligingly, “six boys and girls were cast away on a great forest with nothing to eat. It was a forest filled with gob—Hark!” she interrupted herself, “What’s that?”
From somewhere—not the forest about them, nor the sky above: it seemed actually to issue from the earth under them—came a strange moaning cry. The children jumped to their feet. The boys started apart. The girls clung together. The cry grew louder and louder. It was joined by a second voice even more strange; and then a third entered the chorus.
It was too much.
The little group, white-faced and trembling, broke and made for the trail. The girls started first. The boys staid still, irresolute; but as the uncanny sound grew louder and louder, soared higher and higher, they became panic-stricken too. They ran. Arthur, ending the file, walked at first. But finally even his walk grew into a run. The others leaped forward. They bounded over the trail, gaining in terror as they went. In some way, they got into the canoes but half a dozen times their trembling and fumbling nearly spilled them out. It was not until they were well out into the middle of the Magic Mirror that their composure came back.
“What do you suppose it was?” Maida asked, white faced.
“It couldn’t have been a ghost could it?” dropped from Laura’s shaking lips.
“No.” Arthur dismissed this theory with complete contempt.
“I should think it was a crazy person,” Harold declared. “Is there a lunatic asylum around here, Maida?”