presence nor heard the sound that had been so plain to Ann and Jo. “Somebody came back of us,” Jo told him. “You heard him move, didn’t you, Ann?” He seemed to wish to be reassured. “I heard it twice,” said Ann. Her fingers were cold and she tucked them into the palms of her hands. She was chilly all over. “Shouldn’t wonder if it might not be the wind coming in through the porthole of the mate’s cabin,” suggested Ben. “Wind often makes a queer noise.” 73 “You may be right,” said Jo slowly. “We’ll look.” 73 He led the way into the smaller cabin again. The porthole was closed tightly and it was unbroken. “I think I will go up on deck,” said Helen abruptly. “We will all go,” said Jo. “We’ve seen about everything down here, I should think.” Once more on deck in full sunlight everybody felt more comfortable, for it is a spooky business to hunt through the empty cabins of a haunted ship and there are plenty of grown-ups who never would have gone there at all. From the deck they peered into the blackness of the hold, but they could see nothing without the flashlight that Ben promised to bring next time. Down in the depths bright little glimmers showed here and there from the opened seams in the side of the schooner, but there was not enough light to reveal any possible secrets hidden in the hold. A ladder led down into the darkness, but after Jo had tested it and descended a few steps he reported that some of the rungs were broken; it was too unsafe to go down unless one could see the exact condition of every step before he trusted his weight to it. He paused a few seconds before he climbed into the light again, and he bent his head to listen. “The water is in here,” he called. “I guess it keeps pretty high up; I can hear it swish a little.” “If the water is so high, no one could hide down74 there,” said Helen decidedly. “They would get all wet.” 74 “It wouldn’t be much over their knees,” Jo answered. “That’s about where the first cracked seam comes. Any water that got in above that would run out with the tide. But it wouldn’t be pleasant to stay down
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