“Rats,” she whispered. “Three of them.”
The pit-pat of feet became distinct again. Putting out her hand to grip the skate, she discovered that her fingers were too stiff for service. She had grown cold without sensing it. Rubbing her hands together, she warmed them. Her limbs too had grown stiff. Rising silently, she went through a series of exercises which sent the blood coursing through her veins.
“Must get out of here some way,” she told herself, “but how?”
Then suddenly she thought of the girls. They would be anxious about her, might come out to seek her, only to fall into a trap.
A trap? She thought of Lucile, slim, nervous. Lucile hovering as she had in the corner of that old Mission on that other night; thought too of the things Lucile had seen there; admired the nerve she had displayed.
But what did it all mean? She could but feel that it all was connected in some way; the note of warning tacked to the schooner; Lucile’s experience in the Mission and her present one, all fitted together in one.
What was it all about? Were they innocently checkmating, or appearing to checkmate, some men in their attempt to perform some unlawful deed? Were these persons moonshiners, gamblers, smugglers, or robbers living in the dry dock? If so, who were they?
Again the sound of footsteps grew indistinct in the distance.
“Ought to be getting out of here,” she told herself. “Getting late—horribly late and—and cold. The girls will be searching for me. There’s an open window over there to my right. Terribly high up, but I might make the ground though.”
She listened intently, but caught no sound. Then stealthily, step by step, she made her way toward the window.