At last, when the singer seemed close to that very spot, the song ceased.
“Thunder!” muttered Browning. “Where is that fellow? Thought it must be another one of their gang coming.”
“Nothing of the sort,” whispered Diamond. “Didn’t you see how scared the men digging were?”
“Sure.”
“They would not have been frightened if it had been one of their own crowd.”
“That’s so. Who was it, then?”
“Capt. Kidd’s spook,” suggested Harry. “You know it is said his ghost haunts the place where he buried his treasure.”
“Rot!” grunted the big fellow. “Don’t take stock in spooks.”
Then, of a sudden, when the wind had died once more to a low moaning, a wild burst of laughter was heard. That laugh was full of fiendish glee and mockery, and it seemed to come from some vague point in the very midst of the treasure-seekers.
Then the men in the pit did drop their implements and scramble out in hot haste. But they were met with a revolver in the hand of one of the men above, and it drove them back to their digging.