“You probably did,” I shivered.
“Row closer.”
“Let’s wait until daylight.”
But he wouldn’t listen to me. And reluctantly I dipped the oars in at his orders and brought the rowboat against the scow’s side. In another moment he had scrambled on board the big boat, disappearing from my sight. [[123]]
CHAPTER XIII
AMAZING NEWS
Two—three minutes passed. I could hear Scoop tiptoeing about the boat. He would take a few guarded steps, then pause. I could imagine that he was boring the darkness with his probing eyes and listening for sounds of the ghost. I, too, listened to see if I could hear the ghost. But no sounds came to my sharpened ears other than the stealthy movements of my chum.
The moon, in the time that we had made our way into the big wide waters, had vanished behind a breastwork of clouds. In landing on the island we had worked in darkness, except for the light of the flickering lantern. I realized now that my companion and I should have brought the lantern with us to the scow. It would have given us an advantage in enabling us to see what we were doing and what lay beyond our arm’s reach.
I wondered, in a scattered, uneasy way, at the now total absence of the moon. There was something ominous in the depth and silence of the [[124]]darkness that engulfed us. And on the moment, keyed up and nervous, I had the crazy imaginative thought that the night was conspiring against us. It was on the ghost’s side. The darkness was intended to shield the ghostly intruder from our sight, enabling it to do its work unseen and unhampered.