Trembling, Jessie sprang out of bed, slipped a negligee about her shoulders, and ran noiselessly to the window.

She stood there shivering. It came again—that sound—more eerie, more terrifying than before.

The echo had barely died away when there was a terrific shriek within the house, and Phrosy, scantily clothed and wild-eyed, rushed from her room.

“Dat’s de ghost! Dat’s de ghost!” she chattered, terrified. “I done tell you he was ’roun’ dis place! Ah’m gwine leave here in de mo’nin’!”

“Hush, Phrosy, please,” ordered Miss Alling. She, as well as Amy and Nell, had been awakened by the hubub, but she alone had had the presence of mind to light a lamp.

Now, with this illumination to sustain them, they gathered in Jessie’s room, Miss Alling doing her utmost to reassure and pacify the terrified Phrosy.

“Ah’m gwine git mah things on dis minute an’ go straight away f’om here,” protested the latter through chattering teeth. “Ain’t nobody gwine hold me here no longer.”

“Don’t be absurd, Phrosy,” said Aunt Emma, in a voice that showed her patience was deserting her. “You know very well you can’t leave here now. There are no boats running till morning, and I am certainly not going to get out the car and try the mountain road after dark. Do you intend to walk?”

“No’m, reckon Ah don’t,” returned Phrosy, somewhat impressed by this argument but still in the grip of panic. “Reckon dere ain’t no gittin’ away till to-morrow, but I sho intentions to take dat mo’nin’ boat. Ah wouldn’t stay in dis place any mo’e nights, no’m, not fo’ a million dollars, Ah wouldn’t.”

“Nobody is likely to offer you that much, anyway, Phrosy,” retorted Miss Alling, adding, as she turned to Jessie: “Do you know what all this is about? I haven’t heard anything.”

“Neither have I,” said Amy, standing beside the shivering Nell. “I am afraid Nell and I missed the show.”

Jessie hesitated. It was evident that she was the only one besides the colored woman who had heard that agonized moan from the direction of the swamp. Subconsciously she had been expecting to hear it repeated, but no sound had greeted her strained attention. If she should tell them that Phrosy was not the only one to be frightened by that strange and eerie cry, would they not perhaps laugh at her, as they were now laughing at Phrosy?

Her hesitation was short-lived, however, for, besides the advisability of telling the truth at all times, she felt that she owed it to the groaning Phrosy to admit that there was something queer going on down by the swamp.

“I heard a noise,” she said.

The girls and Miss Alling stared at her in surprise, while even Phrosy stopped groaning long enough to bestow upon her a look of awe.

“Why, Jessie, you didn’t really!” cried Amy, delightedly. “What kind of noise?”

“It was a horrid sound,” said Jessie, slowly. “Like a wailing moan——”

Phrosy let forth another hair-raising shriek and began to rock herself to and fro, hands lifted beseechingly to heaven.

“Dat’s de ghost what Ah heard! Dat’s de ghost what Ah heard?” she chanted over and over, until Miss Alling was forced to silence her and her voice dropped to a wailing monotone.

The girls were wildly excited and even Miss Alling looked worried.

“I don’t know what to say,” she confessed at last, regarding Jessie seriously. “I had supposed that Phrosy’s imagination was running away with her, but if you heard it too, Jessie——”

“It came twice,” said Jessie. “And it was after the second time that Phrosy yelled——”

“Oh! What’s that?”

It was Nell who spoke, and the girls jumped nervously.

“Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord!”

“Phrosy, be quiet—do!” from Miss Alling. “What was it you heard, Nell?”

“It was like a whistle—soft and repeated three times.”

“Oh, that was Darry’s call,” broke in Jessie, feeling wonderfully relieved.

“The boys have heard the commotion and have come to find out if we are still alive,” suggested Amy, as they started toward the door, dragging the still-trembling Phrosy with them.

Though she was sure that no one but the boys were behind that door, Jessie waited until she heard them speak before opening it.

As their voices reached her reassuringly she flung the door wide, beckoning them eagerly to come in.

The boys looked about them eagerly and with undisguised relief as they realized that the girls and Miss Alling—and even black Phrosy—were alive and well.

“You girls shouldn’t scare us like that,” complained Burd. “From the noise, we thought a lion had been let loose among you, at least.”

“It was Phrosy who did the screaming,” said Jessie. “She thought she heard a ghost.”

“Ah done heard dat ghost an’ Ah done see him wiv mah own eyes,” asserted Phrosy stubbornly. “Ah done see dat ghost walkin’ down near de swamp plain as Ah sees you all here in dis room.”

The boys started to scoff at this, but when they heard that Jessie had heard the moaning cry down near the swamp, their incredulity changed to wonder and, finally, to alarm.

“May be some poor fellow down there in need of help,” said Darry, and immediately proposed that the three boys should investigate the cry.

The girls were opposed to the idea, and did not want the boys to go. But the boys insisted and finally had their own way.

After two hours of fruitless search during which the girls sat together, talking in low tones, Darry and his companions returned, declaring that they had heard and seen nothing to excite the least suspicion.

“If you ask for my private opinion,” said Miss Alling, “it is that we had all better go back to bed for the present and talk this thing over in the morning. Shoo yourselves back to the cabin, boys, and if you hear any more noises, don’t pay any attention to them.”

After some good-natured grumbling the boys did as she suggested. But when, a few minutes later, the girls tried to coax Phrosy back to bed, they found her adamant in her intention to sit up for the rest of the night.

&ldqu............