"Blyton, Enid - Adv 04 - Sea of Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

"Well, I jolly well shan't go to sleep till I hear him come," said Jack. "Wonder why he was so mysterious."

The children expected to see Bill all the evening, and were most disappointed when no car drove up, and nobody walked up to the front door. Half-past nine came, and no Bill.

"I'm afraid you must all go to bed," said Mrs. Mannering. "I'm sorry Ч but really you all look so tired and pale. That horrid measles! I do feel so sorry that that expedition is off Ч it would have done you all the good in the world."

The children went off to bed, grumbling. The girls had a bedroom at the back, and the boys at the front. Jack opened the window and looked out. It was a dark night. No car was to be heard, nor any footsteps.

"I shall listen for Bill," he told Philip. "I shall sit here by the window till he comes. You get into bed. I'll wake you if I hear him."

"We'll take it in turns," said Philip, getting into bed. "You watch for an hour, then wake up, and I'll watch."

In the back bedroom the girls were already in bed. Lucy-Ann wished she could see Bill. She loved him very much Ч he was so safe and strong and wise. Lucy-Ann had no father or mother, and she often wished that Bill was her father. Aunt Allie was a lovely mother, and it was nice to share her with Philip and Dinah. She couldn't share their father because he was dead.

"I hope I shall keep awake and hear Bill when he comes," she thought. But soon she was fast asleep, and so was Dinah. The clock struck half-past ten, and then eleven.

Jack awoke Philip. "Nobody has come yet," he said. "Your turn to watch, Tufty. Funny that he's so late, isn't it?"

Philip sat down at the window. He yawned. He listened but he could hear nothing. And then he suddenly saw a streak of bright light as his mother, downstairs, pulled back a curtain, and the light flooded into the garden.

Philip knew what it was, of course Ч but he suddenly stiffened as the light struck on something pale, hidden in a bush by the front gate. The something was moved quickly back into the shadows, but Philip had guessed what it was.

"That was someone's face I saw! Somebody is hiding in the bushes by the gate. Why? It can't be Bill. He'd come right in. Then it must be somebody waiting in ambush for him. Golly!"

He slipped across to the bed and awoke Jack. He whispered to him what he had seen. Jack was out of bed and by the window at once. But he could see nothing, of course. Mrs. Mannering had drawn the curtain back over the window, and no light shone out now. The garden was in darkness.

"We must do something quickly," said Jack. "If Bill comes, he'll be knocked out, if that's what that man down there is waiting for. Can we warn Bill? Its plain he knows there's danger for himself, or he wouldn't have been so mysterious on the telephone Ч and insisted he couldn't come if anyone else was here. I wish Aunt Allie would go to bed. What's the time? The clock struck eleven some time ago, I know."

There came the sound of somebody clicking off lights and a door closing. "It's Mother," said Philip. "She's not going to wait up any longer. She's coming up to bed. Good! Now the house will be in darkness, and maybe that fellow will go."

"We'll have to see that he does," said Jack. "Do you suppose Bill will come now, Philip? Ч it's getting very late."

"If he says he will, he will," said Philip. "Sh Ч here's Mother."

Both boys hopped into bed and pretended to be asleep. Mrs. Mannering switched the light on, and then, seeing that both boys were apparently sound asleep, she switched it off again quickly. She did the same in the girls' room, and then went to her own room.

Philip was soon sitting by the window again, eyes and ears open for any sign of the hidden man in the bushes below. He thought he heard a faint cough.

"He's still there," he said to Jack. "He must have got wind of Bill coming here tonight."

"Or more likely still, he knows that Bill is a great friend of ours, and whatever gang he belongs to has sent a man to watch in that bush every night," said Jack. "He's hoping that Bill will turn up sooner or later. Bill must have a lot of enemies. He's always tracking down crooks and criminals."

"Listen," said Philip, "I'm going to creep out of the back door, and get through the hedge of the next-door garden, and out of their back gate, so as not to let that hidden man hear me. And I'm going to watch for old Bill and warn him. He'll come up the road, not down, because that's the way he always comes."

"Good idea!" said Jack. "I'll come too."

"No. One of us must watch to see what that man down there does," said Philip. "We'll have to know if he's there or not. I'll go. You stay at the window. If I find Bill coming along I'll warn him and turn him back."

"All right," said Jack, wishing he had the exciting job of creeping about in dark gardens to go and meet Bill. "Give him our love Ч and tell him to phone us if he can, we'll meet him somewhere safe."