CHAPTER XIV THE TERROR In the midst of the clearing, the paper tablecloth still lay on the ground, a great shining rectangle of white. Scattered about, crumpled, soiled, or torn were the paper napkins. Everything else, even the ice cream from the freezer, had disappeared. “Why, who took it?” Arthur demanded in a dazed voice. “Who _could_ have taken it?” he went on in a puzzled one. “Is any one of you playing a joke?” he asked suddenly of the others. Everybody protested his innocence. “We haven’t been gone more than fifteen minutes,” Arthur went on. “Let’s look about. It doesn’t seem to me anybody could have carried all that stuff far and we not get a glimpse of it. It might be tramps.” “One thing is certain,” Maida protested, “tramps didn’t do it. There are never any tramps in Satuit.” The children started their search. They looked behind trees and under bushes; but they showed a tendency to keep together. They talked the matter over, but instinctively their voices lowered. They kept glancing over their shoulders. They found nothing. “It’s like Magic,” Maida commented in a still voice. “You were saying, Rosie, that you wished you could see some fairies or goblins. It looks to me as though the goblins had stolen our lunch.” Arthur alone did not leave the clearing. He stood in the center pivoting about, watching every vista and gnawing his under lip. His face was more perplexed that any of them had ever seen it. “Well if we don’t find our lunch pretty soon,” he said after a while, “we’ve got to go back home to get something to eat.” “Perhaps somebody’s playing a joke on us,” Rosie suggested, “and if we wait for a while, they’ll bring the lunch back.” There seemed nothing else to do. So, rather sobered by this mysterious event, the children seated themselves in a group by the brook. “I can’t wait very much longer,” Laura admitted dolefully. “I’m nearly starved. I was so excited about the picnic that I hardly ate any breakfast.” “Just a few minutes more,” Arthur begged. “Maida, please tell us a story.” “Once upon a time,” Maida began obligingly, “six boys and girls were cast away on a great forest with nothing to eat. It was a forest filled with gob--Hark!” she interrupted herself, “What’s that?” From somewhere--not the forest about them, nor the sky above: it seemed actually to issue from the earth under them--came a strange moaning cry. The children jumped to their feet. The boys started apart. The girls clung together. The cry grew louder and louder. It was joined by a second voice even more strange; and then a third entered the chorus. It was too much.