It took all their courage to venture into that dim, mysterious interior, but the boys never hesitated, but stepped boldly in. Back and forth they paced the grim interior, searching every nook and corner, and found nothing. Not even a sound fell on their strained hearing, save only the strong, steady tolling above their heads.
Charley stood under the little tower and gazed longingly up into its darkness where the bell, under some mysterious power, swayed steadily to and fro.
"I wish I could get up there, I'd tie the thing down," he declared. "If this keeps up, we will have our hands full to keep Chris and the captain on the island."
"Come away, Charley," said Walter, nervously, "this thing is getting positively uncanny. I declare I am beginning to feel a sympathy for Chris' terrors."
The two lads retraced their steps to the hut where they found the captain, in spite of his superstitious fears, preparing to sally out in search of them.
For long the two boys sat trying to argue the captain and Chris out of their superstitious fears. They might as well have tried to argue against fate itself.
"Aye, lads," the captain would say in reply to their logic, "I know spirits seem against reason to shore-staying folks, but sailors know better. Now there was Tom Bowling who took to hearing bells during his watch on deck, an' not two days later, poor old Tom was missing."
"Went crazy and jumped over-board," muttered Charley, but the captain shook his head with the air of a man who had no doubt as to the nature of his friend's fate.
It was not long after the bell ceased tolling that the last of the little party fell into a troubled sleep.