Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/144

126 This reminder sent Billy downstairs almost as rapidly as he had come up. Captain Saulsby had been struggling to leave his couch  again, but so firmly had Sally wrapped him  up in blankets that he had only just succeeded  in getting free of them and so had managed  to do himself no harm. He was very querulous in his complaints when they laid him back upon the pillows, but submitted rather more  meekly than before.

There followed a wait; it would have been hard for them to tell whether it lasted the half  of an hour, or for five whole ones. The black shadows outside turned slowly to grey, the  moonlight faded and disappeared, a fresh  wind began to blow the fog away in shore. Somewhere out yonder in the woods a bird began to sing, offering them their first hope that the night with its desperate anxieties and terrors was at last giving place to day. Billy went to the window and threw it open so that  Sally too, from her place beside Captain  Saulsby, might hear the promise of the dawn.

The door pushed open and there came slowly in the bluejacket whom Billy had last  seen signalling on the beach, a target for the  stranger’s rifle.