Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/130

112 some minutes while he made up his mind to something.

“After all,” he concluded at last, almost speaking his thought aloud, “there is not the least harm in going up to see.”

He stepped upon the stairs as quietly as a cat, so that Sally and the Captain need not be  disturbed. The main door to the mill faced the sea, and this he had left open. The steps slanted across the wide, blank wall and passed  close below the largest window that also gave  upon the sea. As Billy climbed higher and higher he realized what a good lookout the  place would make.

The stairs outside were even more unsteady and decayed than was the staircase within, yet  they held under his weight. Billy trod gingerly but progressed steadily upward in as complete silence as he could manage. Once or twice a rotten board creaked under his foot,  but only faintly. He came nearer and nearer to the window and finally laid his hand upon  the sill. He discovered that the sash was pushed half way up and propped with a stick. There was not the slightest glimmer of light inside.

“Now,” he thought, “if the window was up,