From within the hut had come the last sound in the world he expected to hear. It was the whine and crackle of the spark. Somebody was sending a message!
CHAPTER XXII.
AN UNEXPECTED STUDENT.
“Open the door!”
Joe spoke in an authoritative voice as he rattled the portal of the hut. It was locked inside, and at the first turn of the handle the crackling and sputtering of the spark had ceased.
“Hurry up, now,” hailed Joe again as a scuffling sound followed his first order, but no audible reply issued from within.
“It can’t be old Israel and his crowd,” thought the boy as he listened, “and it can’t be those two rascals who were here this afternoon. Either one of those lots would have flung the door open long ago and rushed out on me. Who in the world can it be, then? Somebody trying to play a joke? They’ll find it a pretty unpleasant one.”
Joe waited a minute or two and then as no move was made by whoever was within to open the hut door, he hailed again in an angry voice.
“You’d better obey. It will be all the worse for you if you don’t.”
Footsteps sounded inside and Joe gripped his oar, prepared to bring it down with a crash on the head of whoever appeared. He was not going to take any chances. There followed the sounds of fumbling with a lock and the next minute the door opened. Out stepped a figure so utterly unlike any one that Joe had expected to see that he almost dropped his oar in his astonishment.