"But we——"
This time the iron was uppermost.
"Boy, you are essential to my plans. Much as I love you, I— But we'll not talk on that plane. I am none for threats. Let it suffice that you are not to mention the subject again."
He wheeled around and left me, and with his escort of tarry-breeks strung out behind him was soon buried in the undergrowth on the lower flanks of the hill.
The sun was past meridian when Peter and I induced Moira to abandon the unmarked mound, and to divert her mind we led her on a tramp to the shoulders of the Spyglass, where a score of the James' men already had felled a giant fir and were lopping the branches from the trunk preparatory to removing the bark. In the forest near by we killed a mess of birds, and Peter skilfully broiled them over an open fire, and after that, since she professed to enjoy the silence of the mountainside, we pressed on, beyond hearing of the ringing ax-blades, and finally came to the foot of the steep pinnacle of rock which was the lens of the Spyglass.
Here we would have halted, but Moira had heard the story of the watch the pirates maintained from the summit, and she insisted on completing the ascent, despite the lateness of the hour. And we, because we were for doing anything that would please her that day and relieve her grief, consented.
It was more difficult than it looked, and the sun was low in the west when we reached the platform at the top, stained and blackened by the beacon fires that had burned there. But the view was glorious. The island was spread out beneath us like a map on a table, from the Foremast Hill on our left all the way southward along the rocky spine of the west coast to Mizzenmast Hill and a cape to the west of that which old Martin had called Haulbowline Head. Eastward the irregular shore ran north and south to the indentation of Captain Kidd's Anchorage, the tree growth matted and thick except for several savannas midway of the island and the silvery loops of two or three small rivers.
We identified the masts of the James, rising above the headwaters of the North Inlet, and the opening in the trees north and east of Captain Kidd's Anchorage that was the site of the fort Flint had built. And then Moira cried out:
"Oh, blessed saints, will that be a ship? Do but see, Bob! Peter!"
She pointed eastward; and there, sure enough, was a ship, or rather, the tops'ls of a ship barely lifting over the horizon's rim. If it had not been for the fact that the sun's rays were striking level across the ocean floor, and so were reflected from the sheen of the canvas, we should never have seen it, not even with a glass.