“What’s the matter?” whispered Harvey.
Henry Burns laughed, softly.
“The boat is bewitched,” he said. “You needn’t get nervous, though. It’s just a funny little, squeaky kind of witch-noise. I heard it the other night when I was lying here; but, when I sat up and listened, the sound stopped.”
“What sort of a noise is it?” asked Harvey, not much interested.
“Why, I’ll tell you,” answered Henry Burns, “I suppose the witchcraft is really something loose about this berth, or about one of those shelves, or lockers; and that it works with the swinging of the boat in some way, and makes a squeaking noise.”
“I don’t see anything very mysterious about that,” muttered Harvey.
“I don’t, either,” replied Henry Burns. “Only the queer thing about it seems to be, that when I get up and listen for it, it stops.”
“Well, if any witches fly out of that locker, just wake me up to take a look at them,” laughed Harvey, preparing to roll up in his blanket again for the night.
Henry Burns, also, lay down again, and the cabin was still. In about five minutes more, Henry Burns reached down quietly for one of his shoes and rapped with it on the shelf, above his head.
“What’s that?” demanded Harvey, roused from the early stages of slumber—“some more of your witches? Say, you can’t make me nervous, so you better let me go to sleep.”