Already the monsoon was weakening. The winds were variable, and for the time being scarce a breath of air was stirring.
From the masthead we watched the boat grow smaller and smaller until it seemed no bigger than the point of a pin. The men were rowing with short, slow strokes. They may have gone eight or ten miles before darkness closed in upon them and blotted them out, and they must have got very near to the junk.
The moon, rising soon after sunset, flooded the world with a pale light that made the sea shine like silver and made the island appear like a dark, low shadow. But of the boat and the junk it revealed nothing.
The cook and Blodgett and I were talking idly on the fore hatch when faintly, but so distinctly that we could not mistake it, we heard far off the report of a gun.
"Listen!" cried Blodgett.
It came again and then again.
The cook laid his hand on my shoulder. "Boy," he gasped out, "don' you heah dat yeh screechin'?"
"No," said I.
"Listen!"
We sat for a long time silent, and presently we heard one more very distant gunshot.