“Have you examined the roof?” he asked of Brayton.
“No,” was the reply; “it’s too wet and slippery for any one to venture on to-night, and it’s too dark for us to see all over it. I’m afraid we’ll have to give it up.”
They waited for sometime, nevertheless, visited at brief intervals by other watchers from below, but no renewal of the mysterious sounds disturbed them.
In fact, the wind was dying away now, having lasted a good while for a summer gust, and when at last Brayton led the way down-stairs, Zeb went next, and Bar had a precious moment in which he was able to step back and once more slip the end of the tolling-rope over the arm of the van.
“It won’t do any harm, right away,” he thought, “and there’s no telling when I may have another chance to get up here.”
Once or twice, in the remaining course of that eventful night, faint efforts at a clangor moaned across the green through the still falling rain, but there was not enough of them to draw the villagers again from their houses.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BELL MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED
To say that the usual amount of sleeping was done in Ogleport that night would be to trifle with truth but, for all that, everybody was astir bright and early the next morning.