Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/123



two stood looking at each other for a full minute, both as still as mice.

“Did you hear it?” Sally asked at last in a startled whisper, and, “I did, didn’t you?”  Billy returned.

They listened and listened but there was no repetition of the sound upstairs. It might have been a mistake, it might have been—oh,  anything. The silence was so complete that Billy could hear the blood throbbing in his  ears and the faint squeak of a board under  Sally’s foot as she shifted her position. A little bright-eyed mouse peeped out of a corner and, deceived by the quiet, thought the way  was safe for an excursion across the wide, dusty  floor. It was quite in the centre of the room before it discovered that it was in the dreaded  presence of human beings, turned, and went  scampering back to its hole again. Quite in 105