One of the officers now appeared in the doorway, come to inquire into the welfare of Captain Saulsby.
“We will get him home,” he said; “the tide is off the causeway now and my men can carry him across to his own house, or perhaps on to the hospital in the village. I am afraid he is pretty sick after all these adventures! I wish we could have had time to help you sooner.”
Four of the sailors bore the old captain down to the shore while Billy went home with Sally Shute through the woods. The fog was clearing and it was getting light at last; the stars were growing dimmer and dimmer and the eastern horizon showed a streak of gold. The two stumbled along, too weary to watch the coming dawn, to hear the birds that were beginning to sing, or even to say much to each other. They plodded down the lane in silence and reached Sally’s gate at last.
“You’re a fine, brave girl, Sally,” Billy said, as they came up the path. But she would have none of his praise.
“I was just so curious to see what was up there,” she said, “that I could not possibly help going to find out. I—I wish I hadn’t screamed so when the rifle went off.”
Early as it was, there proved to be a visitor there before them. Some one was sitting on the doorstone with his face buried in his hands, some one whose shock of rumpled yellow hair told plainly that it could be no other than Johann Happs.
“I—I came to see about the clocks, if they were running—” he began to explain lamely.
“It is rather a queer time to come,” Sally commented severely, regarding him with some suspicion. The look of utter misery that he gave her, however, melted her warm little heart and she sat down impulsively upon the step beside him.
“What is the matter, Joe, tell me,” she urged.
Johann shook his head in mute anguish, and said nothing.
“It is not anything,” he finally managed to get out; “not anything at all.”
Billy’s mind had been rapidly putting two and two together so that he broke forth now with the question:
“Johann, did you see that German go by here and take the catboat?”
“No—no,” Johann began earnestly. “I don’t know whom you mean.” But his face belied his words.
“You did see him, you did!” exclaimed Billy. “Why in the world didn’t you stop him?”