is own excitement.

"There are times, Christopher," said Mr. Wicker with his eyes
snapping, "when you surprise even me. But how is it to be done?"

"Well, sir," began Chris, "it's a little tricky but I think, what with
the things we know, it can be worked."

He began outlining to his master the details of his plan.

CHAPTER 18

It was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of.
Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more
distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from
his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the
next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny
kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris's moods, knew something
was afoot, and when Chris and Mr. Wicker finally told him of the
sailing plan, Amos's eyes grew rounder than ever and sparkled more
brightly, but he said never a word.

At ten o'clock that night, when Becky had gone heavily to her room,
wondering perhaps why Chris had given her so hard a hug, Ned Cilley
knocked at the back door. He had brought a light cart on which there
stood a large wicker hamper. Ned and Chris lifted it into the kitchen
while Mr. Wicker drew the curtains and then held a candle high. The
candlelight flickered and flapped like a trapped bird at the corners
of the room, and sharp bird-wing shadows cut across Mr. Wicker's tall
dark figure. Yet to Chris, who was to hold the scene ever after in
his memory, the kitchen by the light of that one candle, and the
figure of his master standing in its center, moved Chris as he had
never been touched before. Amos stood near the basket, looking first
into its square depth filled with shadow, and then up enquiringly at
Mr. Wicker, but he did not speak.

[Illustration]

"Be of good heart, Amos," Mr. Wicker said to him kindly, "and look
after young Christopher as best you can."

Then, at a gesture from Mr. Wicker, Amos, agog, stepped into the
hamper where he stood uncertainly, his expression half terrified and
half delighted.

"Yessir, I will!" he piped up, shrill with excitement. "I'll keep my
eye on him!" he promised, and then curled up in the hamper. Ned Cilley
shut down the top and he and Chris lifted it to the cart. Mr. Wicker
spoke low into Ned's ear.

"All is well understood?" he queried. "This is no time for
misunderstandings!"

"Aye aye, sir! All is clear!" the good Ned replied.

"Then Godspeed to you all