“It’s a nightingale,” whispered Nicholas.

Billie felt that she would like very much to cry.  Nothing had ever stirred her as this flood of melody which seemed to have been turned on for their especial benefit.  While they listened, there came the sound of three pistol shots in quick succession and a cry.  Was it an English cry for help?

Instantly Nicholas was on his feet.

“You had better stay here,” he said.  “I’ll run and see what has happened.”

Before Billie could reply, Nancy dashed up.

“We are all to go into the house,” she said.  “Someone has shot a pistol in the far end of the garden.  The men have gone down there.”

Billie considered the situation for a moment.  Certainly neither her father nor his three guests were armed.  Would it not be a good precaution to go to the library and get her father’s pistol?  It was merely an impulse, and she could hardly explain it later, but she obeyed it.

“It’s nothing serious, Mr. Buxton says.  Probably someone who has been celebrating has wandered into the garden, but we had better wait for them in the house,” Billie heard Miss Campbell remark, as she ran along the path to the side entrance.

CHAPTER X.

In the dark.

The impulse that had moved Billie to run ahead of her friends and dash into the library for her father’s pistol carried her so fast, indeed, that she was in the room with the door closed behind her before she realized what she was doing.  It was perfectly dark there.  Not even the brilliant moonlight outside penetrated through the heavy curtains drawn for the night.

“There are always matches on the desk,” she thought, remembering that her father usually smoked while he worked over his papers.

With her hand still on the doorknob she turned and faced the desk without moving a step.  Why was she so frightened?  It was absurd.  Her father would be ashamed of her for being afraid of the dark.  Giving herself a little impatient shake, she took two steps in front of her, groping with her hands like a blind person for obstacles in the way.

She stopped short and listened.  Every nerve in her body was tingling and she felt she was trembling.  For half a minute she hardly breathed.  Then she resolutely began her march in the dark.  At last the desk was reached and her hand was on the green china match holder.  She stood for a moment irresolute.  The pistol was in the lower left-hand desk drawer.  She knew exactly where it was.  Her father had shown it to her only the other day.

“I think you had better know where I keep it,” he had said, “not that you will ever need to use it, I hope, because either Komatsu or I shall always be here to protect you, but just as a matter of precaution.”

Again she reached for the match holder, but it was empty.  Softly opening the drawer, she felt in the back until her fingers grasped the pistol.  Carefully she drew it out and transferred it from her right hand to her left.  There was an unacknowledged relief in Billie’s heart that there were no matches.  She felt she would rather get out of the library in the dark than make any investigations with a match.  Once in the hall she would decide what to do.