“If that is the case,” I reasoned out, “I must have heard the whispering voice in my sleep.”
“It was the whispering voice,” the leader declared, coming to a quick conclusion, “that caused you to dream of the ghost.”
“What?” cried Peg, surprised. “Do you mean to say that Jerry heard the whispering voice before the Strickers came?”
Scoop nodded, sure of himself.
“I can’t understand it,” cried Peg, looking dizzy. “Why should a man mysteriously board our boat in the middle of the night? What object could he have had? Who was he? Why did he whisper to us, asking where we were? And where did he vanish to?”
“It was a ghost,” I hung on.
Scoop laughed.
“Let it be a ghost, if you insist. We should worry, as long as it’s a friendly ghost.”
Peg was struggling, in his slow, steady way, to get his thoughts straightened out.
“But if the man was here in advance of the Strickers, as you say, how did he get on the boat? There was no plank then.”