The Phantom Violin by Roy J. Snell

Author:Roy J. Snell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781776582099
Publisher: The Floating Press

Chapter XVI - Greta's Secret

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That night the dark-eyed Greta found herself in the midst of a nature lover's paradise. Yet she was not at that moment thinking of any paradise. She was listening with all her ears, listening to the sounds of the night, waiting, too, for some other sound that she hoped might come.

"Will it play tonight," she whispered to herself, "the phantom violin?"

That her ear might catch the faintest sound, she was sitting up in bed. And such a sweet-scented bed as it was! Blankets spread over nature's thick mattress of dry moss and balsam tips.

"Why can't I forget and fall asleep," she asked herself.

Once again she leaned forward to listen. "How sweet!" she murmured as she caught the night call of some small bird, a single long-drawn note. "Just a call in the night."

And then, muscles tense, ears strained, she sat erect.

"There it is again!"

No bird this time, no single note, but many notes. Yet it was all so indistinct.

"The phantom violin!" Her lips trembled. "Like the singing of angels!" she told herself.

"There, now it has faded away." Regret was registered in her tone.

Once again she crept under the blankets to the warm spot at Florence's side.

They had come far that day, with pack on back over rough moose trails. The stalwart Florence had carried the heaviest load. Now, oblivious to all about her, she slept the deep sleep of one possessed of a clear head and a healthy body.

The spot they had chosen for their night camp was down from the very crest of Greenstone Ridge but a dozen paces.

Greta was very weary. They had traveled farther that day than had been their intention. There were no fit camping places along the moose trail. At last, just as shadows were falling, they had decided to climb to the crest, a hard task for the day's end. They had made it, for all that. And on the far side of that ridge they had discovered the very spot. A flat rock, some twenty feet across, offered support for an improvised hearth of stones. A mossy bed above this invited them to sleep.

"Plenty of wind. No rain tonight," had been Florence's prophecy. "We'll just make our bed beneath the stars."

And so, here they were, and here was Greta, sitting up, wide awake, dreaming in the night.

Florence had known Greta for only a short time. The true nature of this dark-eyed girl was for the most part as yet to her a veiled secret. She did not know that the nature of these slender, black-eyed ones often drives them unflinching into places of great peril, that roused by anger or intrigued by mystery they will dare all without one backward look.

The story Swen had told Florence could not have frightened Greta from taking a part in this great adventure. Truth was, she knew it all, and more. She treasured a secret all her own, did this dark-eyed girl. She was thinking of it now.

"He called them white flares," she murmured low.

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