“I thought——”

“What’s that?” Ruth interrupted Lida. “I heard something.”

“So did I,” breathed Cara in a hushed voice. She seemed frightened suddenly, for the noise was too unmistakably close by.

“Oh! A man is—groaning!”

“Hark!”

They huddled together in a far corner away from the window that opened on a little upper porch. No one spoke. They certainly had heard a very queer noise, all of them.

“Some one is calling,” Babs insisted, moving as if to answer the call.

“Calling! It’s past twelve o’clock,” replied Cara.

“And a storm is coming. Hear the thunder,” gasped Esther, shuddering in her fright.

Again came the call; surely it was a call, but what a hoarse awful voice intoned it!