"They are loose on the island?" I gasped.
"That would be the natural inference, you'd say. But I couldn't find any trace of them—haven't yet found any."
"Then the Andromeda must have come back to take them off."
Van Dyck's eyes narrowed.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is impossible. But the seas are still running pretty high, and if the yacht's people were able to make a landing with either of the power launches before dawn, they are better sailormen than I've been giving them credit for being."
"They'd come back for their men if it were humanly possible," I ventured, "and they might have good hopes of being able to find them alive. The wreck of the yawl happened after the yacht had disappeared, you remember. But if they did come back, how about the treasure trove? Would they go away again without digging up your plantation? But perhaps they did dig it up?"
He shook his head.
"No; that is the first thing I thought of when the five men turned up missing. The block of coral is just where we left it. Nothing has been disturbed."
"But if that is what the landing party came for last night——"
"I know; it's a mystery, but in the heart of it lies our best hope, I believe. They meant to dig when they made that landing last night. I found a shovel this morning. In their hurry to get away, the yawl crew left it on the beach and the seas had washed it up under the trees."