Courtney pushed himself away from the supporting wall and advanced slowly.
"Here's my gun," he faltered, and the weapon clattered on the rocky floor at his feet. "Don't shoot! I am unarmed. My hands are up,—comrade."
"Stand still," warned the other hoarsely. He was breathing heavily. "Don't move!"
Courtney took another pull at the cigarette that hung limply between his sagging lips. He could be as brave, as cool as the other fellow! He would give them something to talk about when they related the story of his capture. He would—
Suddenly the man lunged forward...A pair of iron arms wrapped themselves about his waist. He went down with a crash. Even as the cry of surprise and indignation rose to his lips, his head struck and his mind became a blank.
Slowly, as out of a fog, his senses came back. He was hazily aware of a light shining in his eyes, and of a dull pain somewhere. Things began to take shape before his whirling eyes. He strove to steady them, to concentrate on the bright thing that flitted back and forth before them. At last the blaze became stationary.
Quite close at hand was a fire,—a bright, crackling fire whose flames danced merrily. Where was he? It was not like any other fire he had ever seen before....Then he saw a face. It gradually fashioned itself out of the gloom high above the flames. He blinked his eyes and stared. Somehow it was vaguely familiar, that face.... He lifted his head and peered intently. Then he raised himself on his elbow, all the while trying to fix that floating face in his mind.
Suddenly his brain cleared. The full picture was revealed: A man standing over the blazing pile of box-wood, gazing down at him with great, unblinking eyes. The sloping roof of the cave, half lost in the thin cloud of smoke, almost touched the crown of the watcher's head,—and this watcher was in the garb of a sailor.
Caleb Vick! Young Caleb Vick!
For a long time the two looked into each other's eyes. Courtney's wavering and uncertain, Caleb's fixed and triumphant.