The fog thickened. The struggling forms merged, grotesquely intermingled and became indistinct. From behind the gray curtain came the sound of heavy blows, muttered imprecations, groans.
Joe waited for the veil to lift, staring with straining eyes, cursing softly. Los Señores were being murdered before his eyes and he could do nothing. Through a rift in the fog he saw Gregory with his back to the cliff fighting back the savage horde which were pressing hard upon him. He was using his rifle as a club. The men were falling away from him. Lang had cleared the way to the skiff; was almost at his companion's side.
From the overhanging ledge above, two dark figures leaped suddenly upon the man beneath, wrenching his gun from his hand, crushing him to the sand. Lang fell upon the group of struggling figures, fighting like a madman. Then he staggered, dropped to his knees and went down before the onslaught.
Again the gray pall drifted down from the tall crags above and blotted out the scene.
Joe staggered to his feet, grasping the wire-stays for support. Then he stiffened and stood listening. The muffled purr of a high-powered motor disturbed the silence. From out the gloom to starboard he saw the bow of a big motor-boat cut the fog. The Mexican shrieked a warning and tightened his clutch on the stays.
The strange craft veered, the sharp bow swung over. With wide-open engines, she struck the Sea Gull amidships, full on the beam. Hurled to the deck by the impact the Mexican heard the snapping and grinding of timbers. He was conscious of falling and the cool rush of waters about his head. Then he remembered no more.
Wrapped in a clinging mantle of filmy fog, rock-bound, grim and mysterious, the Island of El Diablo frowned at the sea from behind the veil of silence. Brave men had sought to fathom her secret but she had guarded it well.