“Matches!” she thought suddenly. There was a penny box of them in her pocket. Until now, in her excitement, she had forgotten them.
The box out, she broke three matches trying to light one. When the fourth flared up, it so startled her that she dropped it.
In time, however, the candle was lit. Then, with bulging eyes she stared before her.
“Nothing,” she told herself in surprise.
She took three steps forward. Still nothing. She advanced ten yards. Nothing.
“Must have been here,” she told herself. “But there is nothing and no one.” She began to shudder again. Had the Roman candle she had fired into the dark revealed a lurking ghost? Surely this ancient fort was spooky enough. But no! Ghosts were nonsense.
“I saw him,” she told herself stoutly.
“A man was here,” she assured herself. “I saw him. I could not have been mistaken. He is here for no good purpose—couldn’t be. I couldn’t have blinded him, else he could not have found his way to—to wherever he has gone. He’s using this fort without permission—perhaps for illegal purposes.”
No longer able to control herself, she went racing on tip-toe down the narrow winding corridor.
There came a sudden burst of moonlight, and she found herself standing in a stone archway, looking out upon a sort of open court grown wild with tall grass, brambles and rose bushes.