"You seen _him_--you seen--" Skippy stammered, frightened at the sound of his own voice. "I don't know what I seen," Nickie said, his words scarcely audible because of his chattering teeth. "I--that scream--you heard that, hah?" "Sure, and I seen him look terrible. Lissen!" Mechanically, they put out their hands to feel for the window and pressed close to it oblivious of the fresh downpour of rain which swept in upon them, drenching them to the skin. The gale screamed its hardest, the lantern creaked in Nickie's shaking hand like some spectral voice out of the night, but that was the only sound to reach their listening ears. "_Timmy!_" Skippy called suddenly. "Timmy--_answer_!" "You hurt, Timmy?" Nickie's query was pathetic. A tense silence seemed to beat upon their ears and for a while they had difficulty in even listening to the noises of the storm. Their eagerness to hear Timmy's thin voice had plunged them into a temporary oblivion from which they recovered with a start. "You believe in spooks?" Nickie asked in a whisper. "Nope." Skippy gulped. "Why?" "Call once again, hah?" Skippy called, loud and long. The wind screamed in answer, mockingly. "Let's beat it downstairs an' have some light, hah?" After a pause: "You ain't got matches, I s'pose?" "Would I be standin' here in the dark?" Nickie's throat was full of noises. "We better be careful goin' down the ladder--say, we didn't leave the lantern in the hall lighted." "An' the one in the kitchen too," Skippy reminded him grimly. "There ain't no light till we get to the kitchen n' find a match." Nickie stopped short. "Where's that rope an' that iron handle?" he asked fearfully. "I hid 'em under that rubbish by the window just now. So go on. Le's get down." Nickie sighed. "I oughta knowed you wouldn't forget nothin' even at a time like this." They groped their way down the ladder and waited for a moment in the upper hall listening to the various sounds throughout the house and the noise of the storm. They could not see each other and they instinctively pressed their bodies close together. Nickie had his hand through Skippy's arm and clung to it tightly. Then by a mutual impulse they moved toward the stairway with measured steps, their ears strained and listening for all that their eyes could not see. It was a long and awesome journey to the bottom of the stairway and once there they had a whispered consultation as to whether to go around through the rooms to the kitchen or march straight past the cellar door and so on into the room. Skippy decided on keeping to the hall even though it meant passing the door to the dim regions below. They had not taken two steps in that direction, when Nickie gave vent to a blood-curdling scream. "_What?_" Skippy cried frantically. "_My foot!_" Nickie was gasping in the dark. "Sump'n run over my foot!" "_A rat!_" Skippy said, disgustedly. "I said to shut that cellar door, Nickie!"