Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/124

106 accord with her usual calm, Sally stared after it and minded its presence not at all. In fact she drew a comforting explanation from the  intrusion.

“I believe it was just rats or mice upstairs,” she said; “the noise they make often does sound like people moving about. I don’t really believe it was anything at all.”

Billy looked up at the long flight of rickety stairs that led from the room they were in to the closed door on the floor above. Could any one be up there, was it that door that had  moved a little on its rusty hinges, was some one peering at them even now? He could not be sure and, if the truth be told, he had no very  great desire to go up and find out. He thought, after all, that Sally’s explanation was  the most comfortable one to believe.

There was not very much chance to think further of the matter just then for Captain  Saulsby began to occupy all their attention. He roused himself from the strange stupor into which he had fallen, and seemed for a  time to be really better. Sally even persuaded him to drink some of the broth that she had brought with her, and had heated before the fire. After he had swallowed it