They had hardly gone, when Pat Mulroony stole cautiously forth into view, and looking carefully about him to satisfy himself that he had not lost his reckoning, ran on tiptoe to where Hezekiah stood.
"What did you see?" breathlessly inquired the latter.
"May our howly mother presarve us, but the island is full of the haythen!"
"What was that light we seen?"
"It was the camp-fire of a whole pack of the divils! But we're in a bad fix."
"Didn't you hear them rifles? They're in a worse fix," said Hezekiah, in an undertone. "What's to be done?"
"That's what puzzles me. We must get back if we can, and see what the outlandish divils have been at."
The two started toward the upper end of the island, the Irishman not disdaining to use the utmost caution. Every dozen yards or so, he paused and listened for the slightest warning of danger; and, as for Hezekiah, he expected each moment to see a whole horde of screeching Shawanoes rush out from the trees and annihilate them.
Some two-thirds of the distance was thus accomplished without any further evidence of the presence of their foes, when the Irishman, who was only a few feet in advance, again halted with a whispered exclamation.