“No!” exclaimed Moran between her teeth, as she and Wilbur were cooking supper; “no, they don't need to; they've got about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of loot on board—OUR loot, too! Good God! it goes against the grain!”
The moon rose considerably earlier that night, and by twelve o'clock the bay was flooded with its electrical whiteness. Wilbur and Moran could plainly make out the junk tied up to the kelp off-shore. But toward one o'clock Wilbur was awakened by Moran shaking his arm.
“There's something wrong out there,” she whispered; “something wrong with the junk. Hear 'em squealing? Look! look! look!” she cried of a sudden; “it's their turn now!”
Wilbur could see the crank junk, with its staring red eyes, high stern and prow, as distinctly as though at noonday. As he watched, it seemed as if a great wave caught her suddenly underfoot. She heaved up bodily out of the water, dropped again with a splash, rose again, and again fell back into her own ripples, that, widening from her sides, broke crisply on the sand at Wilbur's feet.
Then the commotion ceased abruptly. The bay was quiet again. An hour passed, then two. The moon began to set. Moran and Wilbur, wearied of watching, had turned in again, when they were startled to wakefulness by the creak of oarlocks and the sound of a boat grounding in the sand.
The coolies—the deserters from the “Bertha Millner”—were there. Charlie came forward.
“Ge' lup! Ge' lup!” he said. “Junk all smash! Kai-gingh come ashore. I tink him want catch um schooner.”
IX, THE CAPTURE OF HOANG
“What smashed the junk? What wrecked her?” demanded Moran.