“I’ve held the glasses steadily on it,” reported Jack, “and there’s no doubt it’s a light of some kind, and not a star near the horizon, as I thought at first.”
“Could it be a fire on some other island back of Coco Key?” continued Ballyhoo.
“I’d say no to that, and for several reasons,” Oscar interrupted. “In the first place you forget that the skipper told us Coco lay all alone here in this desolate section of the Caribbean Sea. Then again a fire always wobbles, now bright and again dim. That light is steady, if too far away to be figured out.”
“You mean that it must be on some vessel, then, don’t you, Oscar?” Jack asked.
“Nothing else,” he was told. “The boat must have been behind the Key when daylight was with us, which would account for our not seeing the same.”
“Whew! I bet you it’s that Artful Dodger, Captain Badger,” ventured Ballyhoo.
“The skipper will be coming up on deck before long,” Oscar continued, “and we’ll call his attention to the suspicious light. From what he says I don’t believe any spongers or loggerhead turtle fishermen could be away over here; though it might be possible. They cruise about everywhere looking for some corner where they can pick up a cargo. These West India ‘conchs,’ as they call them, are pretty daring chaps, I’m told.”
But a short time later Ballyhoo announced that the strange light had vanished, nor did they glimpse it again, though looking many times.
“Chances are the boat has slipped behind the island again,” Jack ventured to say, “or else for some reason those aboard have decided they don’t need any light, just as we’re doing.”
While the night was fairly dark, at the same time it was later on possible for them to tell where the island lay. The mass seemed to make a shadow on the water that resembled a dark spot.