He found a match and lit it rather shakily, for the whole thing was beginning to get on his nerves. And as the uncertain light flared out once more he saw that their queer new friend was holding something out to him.
“Don’t touch it,” whispered Billie at his elbow. “It might be——”
“But it’s only a candle, Billie, and——” Teddy was beginning when the little fellow himself interrupted impatiently.
“Light it, light it,” he commanded, glancing nervously over his shoulder into the spooky corners of the cave. “Your match will be burnt out and we will be left in the dark. The dark. I’m afraid of the dark. Hurry, hurry!”
To Teddy and Billie at the same instant came the startling thought that the man was a lunatic. His looks, his voice, his manner, were all proof of it.
And while Teddy lighted the candle with his one remaining match, Billie began to shiver wretchedly. If only they had not found the old cave everything would have been all right. They might even have been home by this time. For the moment she had forgotten how cold it was outside and that neither she nor Teddy knew the way home.
While Teddy glanced about for some place to set the lighted candle, she furtively studied the simpleton, into whose hiding-place they had been unlucky enough to stumble.
He was about twenty-one, she guessed, scarcely more than a boy. His features were as small as his body, his eyes little and red-rimmed and shifty, with an expression of vacancy that made Billie’s blood run cold. His hair, as nearly as she could tell in the flickering light, was red.
And while Billie watched him, he watched Teddy, and she was surprised to see his vacant eyes suddenly fill with terror. Then, when Teddy turned back, after setting the candle on a projecting piece of rock, the simpleton came close to him, holding out shaking, imploring hands.
“Have you come to take me away? Have you?” he asked wildly, and then as Teddy still continued to stare at him, he fell to the ground, groveling in the dirt at the boy’s feet.