He laughed gently.
“Easily enough. They will not sail without getting up their anchors, and we must hear the noise they make.”
“But I don’t quite see what good we are doing,” I whispered.
“Not see? Suppose we had stopped ashore, we should not have known of these men coming to strengthen the crews, and we should not have known till daylight whether they had sailed or were still at anchor. This last we shall know very soon, and can follow them slowly. Why, if we had waited till morning and found them gone, which way should we have sailed?”
“I’m very dense and stupid, sir,” I said. “I had not thought of that.”
“Allee go to s’eep,” whispered Ching; “no go ’way to-night.”
“What’s that mean?” said Mr Brooke in a low voice; and I felt his arm across my chest as he pointed away to the left.
I looked in that direction, and saw a bright gleam of light from the shore.
“Our fire blazing up, sir,” said Tom Jecks softly.
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mr Brooke thoughtfully; and as we watched the bright light disappeared, but only to appear again, and this was repeated three times.