Cal’s first thought was to drop to the ground and race after them, for he didn’t need to be told that danger was at hand. But by the time he was ready to swing himself down the others were half-way to the fence and he realized that safety lay in remaining where he was, hidden in the dark foliage of the tree. With his heart pounding so that he feared it would proclaim his whereabouts to the pursuit, he waited and watched. For a full minute he heard nothing and saw nothing. Then a sound reached him, a sound that resembled a chuckle, and to his overwrought ears a most diabolical chuckle at that, and an instant later there came dimly into sight a ghastly white form that almost caused him to fall out of the tree from sheer terror.
The moon was almost at the horizon and a ray of light slanted through an opening in the trees and illumined the form for a brief moment. It stood almost under the tree and while he watched, his eyes almost popping from his head and his heart standing still, it grew smaller and smaller until it was only two or three feet high, and then in an equally mysterious way lengthened again, fluttered under his gaze for a moment and then was hidden by the branches.
Cal didn’t believe in ghosts, of course; what sensible boy does? But there was something frightfully uncanny about that white-robed figure and the noiseless way in which it came and went. For it had gone, although Cal didn’t know how far and would have given a good deal to find out. There were drops of cold perspiration on his forehead, a queer twitching at his scalp that felt as though his hair was trying its best to stand on end, and uncomfortable shivers up and down his spine. He tried to laugh at himself, but the laugh wouldn’t come. He clutched the branch tightly and waited what seemed an eternity. Once he was almost certain that he heard the closing of a distant door, but he didn’t intend to run any risks. And so it was a good five minutes after the alarm that he finally dropped to the ground, looked fearfully around him for sight of the dread figure and then bolted as fast as his legs would take him for the hedge and the fence and safety! There was no thought of avoiding noise. He crashed into the hedge and through it, scrambled over the fence—just how he didn’t know—and fled across the turf to where, under the dining-room window, seven agitated comrades awaited him. When he saw them he drew up and strove to complete his arrival more calmly.
“Did you see it?” cried The Fungus.
“What was it?” demanded the others. “Did it catch you?”
“You bet I saw it!” panted Cal. “It came right under the tree and stood there and got little and then got big again and just disappeared like—like that!” And he waved his arm.