The Orchard Secret Page 23

  CHAPTER XXIII The Injured Chaplain

  The three freshmen in 513 worked diligently and with a minimum ofconversation. Now and then Arden inquired about the spelling of a word,or Terry put a question as to the correct ending of a Latin verb, but onthe whole their time was well occupied.

  At about nine o'clock the lights all over the dormitory building weredimmed for a moment, a warning that in five minutes more they would beextinguished in every room. Arden announced happily that she had finishedher assignments.

  "I have, too!" cried Terry. But Sim sighed deeply as she said:

  "I just made it. But I think my math is all wrong."

  "Never mind," soothed Arden. "Perhaps you're a genius. Lots of them can'tdo math for a cent."

  The lights went out suddenly, and the girls threw themselves on theirbeds to await Jane Randall's knock, summoning them to the pantry raid.

  Arden and her chums must have fallen asleep, for they were startled when,some time later, Jane, afraid of knocking too loudly on their door pushedit open and tiptoed in. She groped her way to Terry's bed, shook her andhissed:

  "Wake up! It's time to go!"

  "Oh!" gasped the startled Terry, the other two echoing her surprise withtheir own. They had no idea that they had slumbered.

  Silently they took their flashlights and crept down the darkenedcorridor. The kitchen was far below on the same floor with the diningroom. The kitchen was bright enough by day, for there were windows onthree sides, but it was as dark as a cave at night. A large longtable-bench ran the length of one side of the room. On this the plateswere served to be carried into the dining hall by waitresses. Above thebench were racks for holding dishes. Gleaming pots, pans, and kettleshung on the wall near the huge stove, its fire now banked for the night.Shining copper tanks for hot water to make tea and boil the coffee caughtand reflected the beams from flashlights carried by the marauders.

  Unaccustomed to the strange place, the girls all stood still for a fewmoments to get their bearings. Arden gave a sudden frightened squeal as astartled mouse ran across her foot.

  "Oh," she gasped. "The place is overrun with the little beasts!"

  "Hush!" cautioned Jane Randall. "That watchman may hear us. He comes inhere on his rounds."

  "Where's the food, Jane?" whispered Terry, advancing farther into theroom which, somehow, had a spooky atmosphere.

  "It ought to be around here some place," Jane replied cautiously.

  "Ah-a-a-ah! Pies!" suddenly exclaimed Terry as she opened the door of alarge cupboard.

  "Let's take a few. They are for tomorrow, I suppose, and must have beenbaked late this afternoon. What do they smell like, Terry?" asked Sim.

  "They all smell pretty much alike to me. I'll take four, one off eachshelf. We ought to get a variety that way," suggested Terry.

  The other girls were silently exploring, by means of their electrictorches, the dark corners of the kitchen. They decided against takingbread or rolls as being too unromantic for a midnight feast. Janeconvinced them that milk would do nicely to wash down the food, and itwas when Arden opened the door of the immense refrigerator that she madethe prize discovery of the evening.

  "Look what I've found!" she exclaimed. "Two roasted chickens!"

  "Lovely!" breathed Sim. "Come over here, kids! Arden has struck a goldmine!"

  Temporarily leaving their own investigations, the other girls crowdedaround the ice box and focused their lights on the innocent brownedbirds.

  "The sight of them makes my mouth water!" announced Sim. "But we musthave enough food, now, with these as a background. Milk, pie and roastchickens! Lovely! Let's take them and go quickly before we are caught."

  Arden reached in and lifted out one of the doomed chickens. She turnedhalf around to hand it to Sim, who was waiting to take it, when the wholeparty of girls was suddenly frozen into immobility with terror.

  For through the silence of the night sounded mournfully:

  Dong! Ding-dong! Dong! Dong!

  It was the old alarm bell again sonorously clanging at the mystic hour oftwelve--the hour when "witches, warlocks an' lang-nebbied things" arefree to roam.

  "Heavens! What's that?" gasped Jane Randall, though well she and theothers knew.

  "It's that bell again," said Arden unnecessarily. She stood holdingfirmly to a leg of the chicken while Sim dug her fingers into the softbrowned flesh beneath a wing. They laughed over it later, of course. Butjust now terror gripped them.

  Terry was holding the pies so tightly in her fright that her fingerspunctured the crust and went messily into the fruit beneath. They allstood like children who had been playing "statues"; in just the positionsthey had assumed when that ghostly bell began to toll.

  It stopped for a moment and then began to peal again, if anything moreloudly than at first. Then the girls came back to life, and while it wasstill clanging the second time, Arden had presence of mind enough toclose the refrigerator door, to stave off discovery as long as possibleif the authorities entered the kitchen. Then, with the other girls, whowere also holding to the food they had captured, Arden ran to the lowwindows on the north side of the kitchen. They all crowded close to theglass casement and peered out into the night. The bell sounded moreclearly from this vantage point.

  "Who can be ringing it?" murmured Jane. "I hate bells or whistles in thenight. It always seems so--ghostly!"

  "Stop it!" someone implored.

  "I'd like to run around outside and find out about it," declared Terry."Of course, it must be _someone_ pulling the rope. Bells don't ring ofthemselves."

  "Maybe the wind," suggested Mary Todd.

  "The wind couldn't ring that old bell," declared Arden. "It's too heavyto be swayed by what little breeze there is tonight. And it's high up onthe wall, under a sort of canopy. No, someone pulled that rope."

  "But the rope is high up, out of reach from the ground," said Sim who hadnoticed that fact.

  Puzzled, alarmed, and in momentary fear of being discovered in themidnight raid, the girls stood at the window. It was in a sort ofextension of the building and faced the north, so that from it a viewcould be had of the rear college grounds leading down to the orchard.

  It was at this scene the girls were now gazing, some illumination beingfurnished by a pale and watery moon now and then hidden by scuddingclouds.

  Suddenly Ethel Anderson clutched Arden by the arm, so violently as almostto cause the dropping of the chicken, and Ethel exclaimed:

  "What's that dark thing on the lawn near the orchard?"

  "Where?" asked several, crowding closer.

  "There!" Ethel pointed at a moment when the moon came out of the clouds.

  "Looks like a black dog, to me," Terry said. "Or perhaps----"

  Terry's sentence was never finished, for Arden broke in with:

  "It's a man! A man crawling on his hands and knees! It is! Look!"

  The last wisp of cloud was wiped from the face of the moon. The form ofthe crawling man was seen plainly.

  "Oh, heavens!"

  "We must tell someone!"

  "What'll we do?"

  "We must wake Tiddy!"

  "Oh, let's get out of here!"

  "Who is it?"

  Questions, exclamations, fearsome gasps and excited advice all trippedpell-mell from the girls.

  Then, quickly, Arden took control of the situation.

  "Hush, girls!" she calmly advised. "All of you keep quiet. Now, just amoment, please."

  Her calm voice had its effect, and they all grew quiet, though there wasnot one whose breathing came naturally. Arden managed to raise the lowersash a little way.

  And then, through this opening, as the girls watched the black, crawlingfigure, came a voice feebly calling:

  "Help! Help! Help!"

  "It's Henny!" exclaimed Terry as she and the others recognized thesqueaky voice of the aged chaplain. "Dr. Bordmust; and he's hurt!"