Suddenly, as Peter glanced in the direction where the old leaning
gravestones were wrapped in darkness, he saw something which harrowed
his very soul and made his blood run cold. One of those stones was
bathed in a dim, shadowy light. It was startling to see just one stone
and no others. It was not a light so much as an area of gossamer
brightness that enveloped it, a kind of gauze shroud. Peter gazed,
unable to stir, his breaths coming short and fast. Then this dim shroud
left the tombstone and glided slowly through the graveyard, shedding its
hovering brightness upon a small area of the stone wall as it crossed,
and came steadily, steadily over toward Peter Piper.
CHAPTER XXII
HARK! THE CONQUERING HERO COMES
"What the dickens is this, anyway; a cemetery?" said Mr. Swiper, poking
the finding light this way and that as the car of a thousand delights
came slowly up toward the bend. "It's some rocky road to Dublin, all
right."
He cast the light along the dark road behind them and looked
apprehensively back as far as he could see. Evidently there was no cause
for fear there and he dropped the car of a thousand delights into second
gear and picked his way along the narrow, rocky way, below the bend. "I
guess it will be better when we get around here," he said; "we have to
watch our step in this jungle. Nice place to build a church, huh?" He
threw the finding light upon the little edifice ahead and brightened the
small stained-glass window, casting a soft reflection upon Deacon
Small's slanting marble slab nearby.
The small figure in a gray sweater with a rather tough look, cap drawn
over his round face, who sat huddled up alongside the driver seemed not
to partake of the delights which the big car claimed to furnish. He
seemed chilled and very much worried. He looked wistfully ahead at the
graveyard where the strange, soft, reflected light shone.
"The people around here haven't got any 'phones," he said. "Anyways
what's the use 'phoning Mr. Bartlett because he'll only be in bed. If
we're going straight to Bridgeboro, gee whiz, what's the good of
'phoning? What's the use waking people up around here, even if they have
got 'phones? Gee whiz, you're acting awful funny. Why didn't you ask me
to 'phone when we were passing through a village?"
"You're going to get out and 'phone when I tell you to; see?" said our
friend, the manual training teacher. "And you ain't going to give me no
sass neither, understand? I don't let kids tell me my business."
"You just want to get rid of me, that's what," said Pee-wee. "Gee, you
might as well say what you mean, I'm not scared."
"Oh, ain't you? Well you do as I tell you and you'll be all right. You
do as I tell you if you want to get a ride home; see? Mr. Bartlett and
me are grown-up men, we are, and we know what's the right way to do.
When a kid is told to do something he's gotter do it. You know so much
about them scout kids; don't you know that?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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