The Harrisons watched him with intense interest, and when his hands were on the window-sill their excitement reached a climax.
It was with some difficulty that the bold adventurer raised himself high enough to see into the room, and it was only for one instant that he occupied such a position. Just as his face appeared at the window another face—a horrid face, from which a pair of large melancholy eyes glowed with a wild fierce light—presented itself opposite Yaspard, and stared out at him in a manner to startle the stoutest man alive.
Our hero did not wait for a second glance at that dreadful apparition, but descended from his equivocal position much more rapidly than he had reached it.
"What was it? Tell us quick," whispered Lowrie, and both he and his brother were trembling with fear. They had caught a glimpse of the face that had met Yaspard's, and its unearthly appearance had been greatly exaggerated by the shadows and the distance. Although they were too intelligent to credit any story of trows, they had lively imaginations, and had been bred in a land where the mysteries of creation take fantastic shapes in the minds of a wonder-loving and superstitious peasantry. They had shrunk from penetrating the secrets of that haunted room, and were not altogether surprised, though entirely frightened, that "something" had "appeared" to rebuke and check their leader's audacity.
While Yaspard gasped for breath after his hasty descent the Harrisons again begged, "Tell us quick about it," but Yaspard was in no hurry to tell. He retreated again into the ruin, whither his companions followed, and, sitting down by the loaded keschies, he cast his eyes on the ground and would not speak.
There was something awesome in the silence, in the surroundings, in the whole adventure, therefore it is not to be wondered that Lowrie felt creepy, and Gibbie's teeth chattered in his head.
At last the elder brother took courage to say, "Let's go back to our boat. There's nae gude tae be got o' sitting here like gaping fish left dry and high upon a skerry."
"Put the keschies in the passage, anyway," said Yaspard, agreeing to the proposal; but the Harrisons were not willing to enter that passage again, so they suggested another hiding-place, namely, the chimney, which was stopped up and grown over above, but had capacious ledges inside which suited admirably for the purpose they required. Their things were deposited there, and then the three adventurers stole silently away from Trullyabister, two feeling crestfallen and very uncomfortable, the third plunged in thought, and looking the beau ideal of a pirate chief meditating over some dark and deadly project.
It was not until the Osprey had passed the Hoobes, and was being swiftly rowed to Noostigard, that Yaspard broke the eerie silence which he had maintained in a most unusual manner. "It all works in!—works in beautiful!" he remarked. Now, that was not at all the kind of speech the others had expected, and their amazement was so great that they paused in their rowing and gazed at him in speechless astonishment.
He laughed then, his own hearty laugh, which somehow had the effect of dissipating all the fears with which they had been beset, but did not diminish their surprise and curiosity.