“I do trust you, Bart, heartily. Remember this: Abel and I were always together as children and companions; to the last I loved my brother, Bart.”
Bart listened to the simply-uttered words, to which their tone and the solemn time gave a peculiar pathos; and for a few moments there was silence.
“I know,” he said, softly. “And in my rough way I loved Abel Dell as a brother. Don’t you think because I say nought that I don’t feel it.”
“I know you too well, Bart. Go and do this for me; I will stay aboard. I’m captain now, since fate so wills it, and the men shall find that I am their head.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Bart, raising his hand, but dropping it again and drawing back. “That’s how I like to hear you speak, captain. Trust me, it shall be done.”
An hour later the men stood aloof as Bart and Dinny lowered a long deal case into the boat and, as soon as the rope was cast off, hoisted the little sail and ran for the sandy cove where the boat had landed before.
They were provided with a lantern, and this they kept shrouded in a boat-cloak originally the property of the Spanish captain of a vessel that had been taken.
The precaution was needless, for nothing was within sight; and they landed and drew up the boat upon the sand, where the phosphorescent water rippled softly, and then the long chest was lifted out, and Bart bore it toward the cocoa-nut grove.
“Well,” said Dinny, following close behind, “I did say that I wouldn’t do such work as this; but it’s for the captain, and maybe some day I shall be wanting such a job done for me.”
Bart set down the case and Dinny the lantern beneath the cocoa-nut trees close by the levelled patch of shore; and then, with the dull light shining through the horn panes upon the sand, the two men stood in the midst of the faint halo listening to the soft whispering of the tide among the shingle, and the more distant boom of the surf.