They heated some water at the fire and mixed a hot drink for the old man which he roused himself enough to swallow. They covered him with warm blankets and rubbed at his cold hands.
“Now try to lift him up a little,” she ordered, “while I get this pillow under his head. That is right, now—Billy, what is that?”
For the absolute silence of the empty mill had been broken by a sound. Above their heads was heard the creak of a board, then the muffled noise of a quiet footfall and the scraping of rusty hinges as a door was stealthily opened.
The 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 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 down, with some reluctance and by dint of much persuading, the old sailor sat up and seemed lively and talkative and almost himself again.