Were they friends or foes? Stepping quickly into the house we took our guns and waited behind the stockade, standing so we could watch the boat. It had the appearance of a canoe, made of wood. Evidently the black men had seen our house as the canoe was turned toward the shore.
She grounded in a few seconds, and the men sprang ashore. They cautiously approached the boat-shed peered into it, and then came slowly toward the house. Beckoning Marjorie to remain out of sight we grasped our guns and stepped boldly out, resolved to meet the emergency unhesitatingly, whatever it might be.
To our surprise the black men stopped with a shout of joy.
One a tall, fine looking negro, stepped toward us and extended his hand to us.
"Fo' de Lard, Marsa; Who is yo', how long yo' ben heah?"
I told him that I had been here many months, and that my two companions, pointing to Mr. Harborough and to Marjorie, who now came forward, had been here half as long.
Then he told us a strange story, one which gave us great joy.
He said that they were coming from their island to this one to hunt turtles, at the great breeding place which I had discovered on my first march to the mountain, and that, while nearing the east coast of our island a steamer came along, slowed down and then stopped.
Men on the steamer seemed to be looking at the island with glasses, and then the whistle of the steamer was blown. This was in the late evening before. Presently the steamer started and when it came up with the canoe the "cap'n" asked them if there were any people living on the island.
The black men answered in the negative, adding that none of the turtle hunters dared go far from shore, for a terrible savage monster half man and half demon, lurked in the forest. The "cap'n" told them he had seen a beacon on the top of the mountain, and that he believed some one was signalling for assistance. So he bargained with them to follow close along the shore, searching carefully in every cove, while the steamer followed slowly.