CHAPTER IV

PLAYING THE GHOST

FOR two long, weary hours Tonie and Blonda waited behind the boulder by the lake side. Once only, at the end of the first half-hour, Tonie stole into the pine wood at the back of the house, and, under the deep shadow of the trees, glanced up at the windows, and saw a light in one after another, as the men pursued their search for the money.

When the light flashed through the window of Blonda's little room, the boy noticed that the glass was broken away. Close to the casement, a tall birch tree reared its stately form, and Tonie understood at once how Freskel had contrived to get into the house, and wondered at his ingenuity and courage. To come to the help of the besieged children, he must have climbed the long, straight, silvery stem like a squirrel, and then swung out from a bough until he could grasp the window ledge, gain a footing there, and dash through the glass.

"Was it not bold of him, and clever too?" said Tonie, when he rejoined his sister in the niche where she was hiding, and told her how Freskel had managed to come to their assistance.

"Yes; and he came as God's answer to our prayer for help," said Blonda, with kindling eyes. "Tonie, surely thou and I can never doubt God again. How frightened we were! We knew not what to do, or whither to go, but no sooner had we cried to the good Lord to send us help than we heard the crash of the window, and down came Freskel like an angel from the skies. And knowest thou, Tonie, what was in my mind as we opened the door so quietly, so easily, and passed out? It seemed to me that, perchance, thus felt the apostle Peter when God sent the angel at night to strike off his chains, and open barred doors for him, and lead him forth out of prison, and from the death that threatened him."

Tonie gave a little chuckle. "I know not how Peter felt," said he, "but think you not, little sister, that Freskel Valden is rather a queer angel?"

"I know not—I care not!" replied the child, peering out earnestly across the water, while Tonie, standing up, watched, for fear of surprise, the bit of pine wood behind which stood the cottage. "Does it matter what an angel looks like, so long as he is the messenger of God, and comes to our help? Could one of the white-robed and flying ones do more?"

"Strange that this same angel of thine comes not back from the island!" remarked Tonie, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Only think, my Blonda, what it would be if, after all, he had played us false, and gone off with the—"

"Tonie! For shame! How canst thou?" said the little girl indignantly. "Think but how faithful, how loyal he has been for years to our pastor! And besides, Tonie, would God have sent us a bad angel in answer to our prayer? Nay—if our earthly parents, as Jesus says, could never give us a stone when we ask for bread, is it likely that the loving Father in Heaven would send us a curse instead of a blessing, when we cried to Him for help? Nay, Tonie, I have full faith in poor Freskel, and I would answer for his honesty with my life."

"Poor Freskel thanks and blesses thee for that, Blonda!" said a low voice in her ear, and turning quickly, she saw Freskel, who had approached unobserved and unheard.

The little girl looked up at him in wonder, for his face was full of excitement, with great eyes that shone like lamps under his streaming locks.

"The bag of coin—is it safe, Freskel?" asked Tonie.

"Safe!" laughed the youth. "Oh yes! So safe that none save Freskel could ever find it; though, after all, a bag of treasure more or less—what matters it, when untold wealth lies ready for the finding."

"Thou wert absent a long time, Freskel," said Blonda gently. "Tell us, was it so hard to find a place wherein the bag could be hidden safely?"

But Freskel did not appear to hear. A strange, triumphant look lighted up his face, as he stood gazing out across the water at the Isle of Ghosts, which reared its rugged points under the moonlight, clothed in a weird and spectral splendour.

"Who said I could not keep a secret?" he murmured at last, in a strange, sing-song voice. "The winds of heaven say not whence they come nor whither they go; the flowers have no words to tell us who paints their cheeks, and tints their eyes, and unfolds their leaflets one by one. They keep their secrets, and Freskel keeps his."

"But surely thou wilt tell the dear pastor—wilt thou not—where his friend's money lies hidden?" questioned Tonie.

"His friend's money? What money?" said the youth vaguely.

"Art thou mad, Freskel? What should it be but the bag of coin that thou hast just hidden lest the robbers steal it away."

"Ach, yes; I remember now," answered Freskel, more quietly. "Fear not; the pastor shall know all about it. But now, go home, and to bed, you two, and Freskel will go to the pastor's house."

"But how know we that the robbers are not still lurking about near the cottage?" Tonie asked.

"They have gone," replied Freskel. "I caused them to hear strange voices and to see a strange face, and they were smitten with fear, and fled away, thinking perchance that the ghosts of the old, old robbers of the long ago were claiming them for fellows and mates."

The children stood and stared in horror the half-witted youth.

"Now thou must be altogether mad!" remarked Tonie severely. "Thou! How couldst thou make them afraid with thy voices and faces, when thou wert in the island hiding the bag?"

"Hush Tonie, be not so harsh to him!" whispered Blonda. "Freskel dear," and she turned to the youth with a smile, "thou hast been good to us, and we thank and bless thee. Nay, but now I was saying to my brother that thou wert even as God's angel sent to us in our distress. But and if thou seek to deceive us thus with lying vanities, what, oh what must we think of thee? God's angels of help tell no falsehoods."

"Neither doth Freskel," replied the lad. "Listen, Blonda, for I would not that such a little white-souled thing as thou should think evil of me. Thinkest thou that I was all the time on the island? Nay; I hid away the bag, and also I found what I sought not, and suddenly possessed what I coveted not.

"Then, all at once, I remembered Dorlat and Hervitz, and wondered if they were still at the cottage, and I swam back to another part of the shore, and crept up through the wood, and opened the back door softly, listened, and heard them upstairs hunting, hunting for what was not there. So then, Tonie, I slipped into thy room, and wrapped myself in a sheet from thy bed, and stood in the passage by the back door, this being open and the moonlight coming in. There I stood, half in light and half in shadow, and howled grievously, and struck on the door handle with a knife that I took from the kitchen.

"Then Dorlat, my big brother, came down the stair, and spied the ghost, and he gave one cry, and fled out through the broken door, and after him came Hervitz, and also two others. And for a short space I followed them, gliding in my white robe through the wood, and howling to speed their flight. Then I returned, leaving the sheet in the house, and came hither to you. So, Blonda, I am no liar; nay, and if poor Freskel was God's angel to you when he led you forth, he is no less so now that he has chased the evil-doers from your home."

"Forgive me, my poor Freskel," cried Blonda, penitently. "Thou hast done nobly, and we can never thank thee enough."

"It is well; I go now to the pastor," said the youth, "and tell him all—all—save only one thing; but that is poor Freskel's secret. Poor Freskel? No, not poor! Rich Freskel—but a secret! A secret! Where did I hear those words: 'A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter'? Did the pastor read them in the church? I know not—I know not, but I hope they are not true."

And the youth moved slowly away, a dreamy, absorbed expression in his face and a strange light in his eyes.

The children went home, and found the whole house in confusion, the intruders having turned everything upside down in their search for the money. But Tonie managed to barricade the broken door with some of the kitchen furniture, and Blonda hung an old quilt before her smashed window.

Then the young folk went to bed, and slept peacefully on far into the morning.

[Illustration]