“Well,” she told herself as her eager feet carried her farther and farther from that haunting spot, “I’ve done a little exploring. I’ve made a discovery and had a thrill. That’s quite enough for one day.”
“Ought to tell someone,” she mused as she sat before the wood fire in the great fireplace of the big summer cottage on the hill that evening. “But then, I wonder if I should? It’s really Ruth’s mystery. She should have a share in its uncovering. I’ll go back to-morrow and see what more I can discover,” she told herself at last.
Had she but known it, reinforcements were shortly to be on the way. In Don’s room on Monhegan, Ruth, Pearl and Don had just held a consultation. In the end they agreed that they should start for home in the morning.
A short while after this, Ruth, as she was about to fall asleep, reached a comforting conclusion:
“Since I saved that girl’s life,” she told herself, “it should square that swordfish affair. I can now spend the swordfish money with a good conscience. I shall have a new punt as soon as I reach Portland Harbor.”
Don’s boat was a sailing sloop with a “kicker” (a small gasoline motor) to give him a lift when the wind was against him. The day they started for home was unusually calm. Sails bagged and flapped in the gentle breeze. The little motor pop-popped away, doing its best, but they made little progress until toward night, when a brisk breeze came up from the east. Then, setting all sail, and shutting off the motor, they bent to the wind and went gliding along before it.
There is nothing quite like a seaworthy sail boat, a fair wind and a gently rippling sea. At night, with the sea all black about you and the stars glimmering above, you appear to drift through a faultless sky toward worlds unknown.
Ruth and Pearl, after their exciting experiences on Monhegan, enjoyed this to the full. Not for long, however, for there was something in the salt sea air and the gently rocking boat which suggested long hours of sleep. So, after wrapping themselves in blankets, with a spare sail for a mattress, they stretched out upon the deck and were soon lost to the world of reality and at home in the land of dreams.
It was on this same calm day that Betty returned to old Fort Skammel and the scene of the tilting stone floor.
Just what she expected to see or do, she could not perhaps have told. Driven on by the spirit of adventure, and beckoned forward by the lure of mystery, she just went, that was all.