"He has to keep up his reputation," said Highboy.

"Ssh," said White Owl, "I hear the cat."

Everybody became as still as a mouse. Coal and Ember crouched, ready to spring, and Highboy and Lowboy, rather frightened, took hold of hands and pressed against the wall. They could hear the soft pat-pat of padded feet in the hall.

Two yellow eyes shone in the doorway, and the Cat entered. He stood in the middle of the room with his tail waving to and fro and looked suspiciously from side to side.

Both Firedogs growled; the Cat spit; White Owl cried, "Who-oo-o," and flew down from his perch. In a twinkling Hortense was running down the hall, hand in hand with Highboy and Lowboy, behind Coal and Ember.

Up the stairs ran the Cat with the Firedogs after him, up the stairs to the third floor and through the door to the attic.

"I'm sure I shut that door," said Hortense. "Who could have opened it?"

She had no time to think further. Up and up she went to the attic and there stopped, panting. The Firedogs were running round and round, growling. White Owl turned his great yellow eyes in all directions.

"He isn't here," said Owl. "I can see in every corner, and he isn't here. But where could he have gone?"

n.o.body had an answer to make, and every one felt that there was something mysterious in the Cat's sudden disappearance.

"I think I'd better go back," said Highboy nervously. "It's time I was asleep. Suppose we should be found way up here!"

By common consent they all moved downstairs together, going very softly. Hortense paused at Grandmother's door. She was speaking.

"I'm sure I heard something," said Grandmother.

"It was only the wind," Grandfather's voice replied.

Hortense and Highboy crept quietly to their room while the others disappeared below.

"It's good to be back safe," Highboy whispered, "but I'm so nervous I know I shan't sleep."

Hortense, however, undressed quickly and climbed into bed. Soon she was fast asleep, and the next thing she knew the sun was shining into her windows.

"It must have been a dream," said Hortense to herself, remembering all that had happened the evening before.

"Was it a dream, Highboy?" she said suddenly, looking at him.

"You may have dreamed," said Highboy irritably, "but I was so nervous I didn't sleep a wink."

Saying no more, Hortense dressed rapidly and went down to breakfast.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV

"_Highboy, and Lowboy, and Owl, and the Firedogs come out at night._"

When Grandmother asked at breakfast if she had slept well, Hortense replied truthfully that she had.

"I don't know what got into Jeremiah last night," said Grandmother. "I heard something myself, and Esmerelda declares he ran about the house like one possessed. This morning we heard him in the attic."

Hortense, eating her egg and toast, thought she might tell Grandmother of last night's surprising events, but of course she wouldn't be believed. So on second thought she said nothing.

Slipping away to the kitchen when breakfast was over, she found Jeremiah begging for his breakfast and Aunt Esmerelda regarding him with hands on hips, shaking her head.

"Yo' sho' is possessed," said Aunt Esmerelda. "Such carrying on I never heard. I spec's de evil one was after yo', an' I hopes he catches yo'

and takes yo' away wid him."

Jeremiah winked his yellow eyes sleepily in reply, but at the sight of Hortense he lashed his tail and turned away. Aunt Esmerelda, grumbling, gave him a saucer of milk.

"Yo' keep away from dat animal," said Aunt Esmerelda to Hortense. "No one knows de wickedness of his heart."

Hortense waited in the kitchen until Mary was free to begin her morning's task of dusting and tidying the rooms.

"May I come?" she begged.

"Sure," said Mary kindly. "I'm dusting the big parlor this morning, and there are lots of interesting things to see there."

In the big unused parlor she threw open the shutters and parted the curtains to let in the sunlight. Hortense was at once absorbed in the treasures she found. The room was filled with things which Grandfather had brought home from his travels all over the world. There were heavy, dark red tables carved with all kinds of flowers and animals, bright silk cushions, little ebony tabourets with bra.s.s trays upon them, curious vases and lacquer boxes from China and j.a.pan. On the mantel was a beautiful tree of pink coral in a gla.s.s case, and beside it were wonderful sh.e.l.ls and little elephants carved from ivory. On the walls were bits of embroidery framed and covered with gla.s.s, picturing bright-plumaged birds and tigers standing in snow.

Most fascinating of all were the strange weapons arrayed in a pattern upon one wall--spears, guns, bows and arrows, swords and knives, boomerangs, war clubs, bolos--weapons which Hortense had seen only in pictures in her geography and in books of travel. They all seemed dead and harmless enough now, not likely to come down from the wall and wander about the house at night. Hortense doubted whether they would even speak.

However, one was different, quite wide-awake and, Hortense could see, only waiting for a chance to leap down from the wall. It was a long knife with a green handle made from some sort of stone. Its shape was most curious, like the path of a snake in the dust. Like a snake, too, it seemed deadly, and the light that played upon its sinuous length and dripped from the point like water, glittered like the eyes of a serpent.

"What an awful knife," said Hortense.

"Those spears and knives give me the shivers," said Mary. "I've told your Grandfather I'd never touch them."

"Most of them are dead," said Hortense, "but the one with the curly blade and the green handle looks as though it could come right down at you. I'd like to have that one."

Mary jumped.

"Don't you touch it," she said severely. "You might hurt yourself dreadfully."

Hortense said no more, but resolved to ask Grandfather about the knife at the first opportunity. Sometime, when she had a chance, she would come to the parlor and talk with the knife. It must have lovely, shivery things to tell.

There was also a couch which fascinated her, a long, low couch with short curved legs and bra.s.s clawed feet. Hortense surveyed it for a long time.

"It looks like an alligator asleep," she said at last. "I wonder if it ever wakes up."

"What does?" Mary asked.

"The couch," said Hortense. "See its short curved legs, just like an alligator's? And it's long. Probably its tail is tucked away inside somewhere. Alligators have long tails, you know. I saw an alligator once that looked just like that."

"I declare," said Mary, "you are an awful child. I won't stay in this room a bit longer. I feel creepy."