The water was calm and mirror-like, and Virginia, having had some experience in handling a skiff, dipped the muffled blades with scarcely a sound. Silently, slowly, cautiously, she propelled the boat along, ever and again turning her head to peer into the deep darkness shrouding the island.
She headed the boat diagonally across the water, so as to strike near the middle of the island. She adopted that course in order that the cabin, which was quite invisible under the deeper shadow of the woods, would come in line between her and the harbor lights. Her reckoning was correct. She had passed the object of her venture without discovering it, but as the island loomed denser and darker on drawing near, it enabled her to locate the craft with precision. She turned the boat, and keeping within the deep shadow that fringed the rim of the island, made straight for the cabin.
As they approached it, the strain on Constance became tense. Virginia watched her narrowly, fearful for the consequences of a disappointment, and she realized, too, that in her own calmness and self-possession, lay the surest support to her companion’s strength. The consciousness of that power nerved, steadied and aided her wonderfully.
CHAPTER XIII.
“Caw! Caw!” sounded with startling distinctness in the still, dark wooded depths of Ross island. For a moment the silence was intense; then it was broken again by the familiar, long-drawn out, guttural cry, “Caw! caw!” of the black scavenger bird. And silence once more settled down upon the scene, and seemed deeper, thicker and more profound than before.
It may have been a half a minute after the second cry when an answer, faint, though clearly audible, was echoed from a neighboring part of the woods.
“Come on!” quietly exclaimed Sam Harris, who, with John Thorpe, stood beside the trunk of a fir that grew midway on the island near its north end.
“An uncanny signal!” remarked Mr. Thorpe, in the same low tones.
“Yes, somehow I feel as though it betokens serious business,” softly replied Sam. “Be careful. A thick vine here. Step clear,” he whispered, as they moved cautiously along.
They had proceeded in silence some distance, part of the time groping their way by the aid of a match, lighted now and again, but artfully concealed, for the darkness was very deep, when through a rift in the wild growth of underbrush a man’s form was seen to move.