Minutes passed before Hugh could speak again. Power of comprehension seemed to have left them. They were looking dumbly into each other's eyes.
"It was a gun--a big gun. Our flag."
Without knowing what they did the two started across the plain, their eyes glued to the great rocks that screened the mystery.
"Can it be the Oolooz men?" she asked.
"The whole Oolooz army, dead or alive, couldn't have made a noise like that. It might have been a volcano breaking through the rocks."
"Then we must not venture down there," she cried, holding back. He threw his big right arm around her waist and broke into a brisk run, taking her along resistlessly.
Together they walked and ran across the plain and through the pass which led to the sea. Far behind straggled a few of the villagers, emboldened by curiosity.
"The rocks seem to be all right," he said, as if a pet theory had been destroyed.
By this time they had passed over the rocks and were upon the sand. Simultaneously they turned their eyes toward the sea, and the sight that burst upon them fairly took the breath from their lungs, leaving them so weak that they staggered. A mile or so out at sea lay a huge ship, white hulled and formidable. There were gun turrets above deck and a swarm of men on board.
Hugh's eyes seemed to turn round and round in his head, his legs began to tremble and his palsied lips parted helplessly, as he pointed to the colors she flew. The American flag fluttered from the mizzen-mast of the great vessel!