The Mutineers / A Tale of Old Days at Sea and of Adventures in the Far East as Benjamin Lathrop Set It Down Some Sixty Years Ago

by Charles Boardman Hawes

The safe was empty.

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VI

IN WHICH WE REACH THE PORT OF OUR DESTINATION

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CHAPTER XXIV

FALK PROPOSES A TRUCE

As we faced each other in amazed silence, we could hear the men working on deck and the sea rippling against the hull of the ship. I felt that strange sensation of mingled reality and unreality which comes sometimes in dreams, and I rather think that Roger felt it, too, for we turned simultaneously to look again into the iron safe. But again only its painted walls met our eyes.

The gold actually was gone.

Roger started up. "Now how did Falk manage that?" he cried. "I swear he hadn't time to open the safe. We took them absolutely by surprise—I could swear we did."