condition; empty drawers, moldy blankets and a closet damp with brine. 71 Suddenly Helen called from the other cabin. “Come quick, Jo!” They tumbled over each other in their efforts to reach her, and they found her pointing to the blankets on the berth. “Some one has been sleeping there!” she said breathlessly. They had not looked closely at the berth when they had been in the cabin and now they saw that the tousled heavy blankets were matted flat, just as they would be if a man had slept on them and had not troubled to shake them when he rose. “Whoever he was, he didn’t choose a comfortable place,” said Ben, looking up at the broken port. “The rain must beat in here every time there is a storm.” Ann turned to speak to Jo; she thought that he was directly behind her, for she heard him move. But when she looked he was not there. He was standing before the table, running his hand behind the drawer. If he hadn’t been close beside her, who had? Neither Ben nor Helen was near enough to be the person whose presence she had felt. Ann shook herself slightly. She mustn’t be so foolish and nervous; she hadn’t supposed she was capable of imagining things that weren’t there. The others were so bravely forgetting that they once had72 thought that the ship might be haunted, and she, the oldest of the Seymours, mustn’t be a coward. 72 Jo left the drawer and came over to the berth again. “We’ll shift these blankets,” he said, “stir them up a little. And then next time we come we can tell whether some one has been sleeping on them again.” A second time Ann heard a slight stir behind her, and this time Jo heard it, too. He stooped with the edge of the blankets in his hands, as though he were frozen. Then he dropped the blankets and leaped from the doorway into the hall. Ann ran after him, and so did Ben and Helen. “Whoever it was has gone up the ladder,” said Jo, evidently trying to make his voice sound natural. His lips were set in a straight line. “Was somebody here?” asked Ben in surprise. He had not felt the
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