“Stop, boys, stop!” cried Uncle Paul; and to the surprise of both he plumped himself down upon the sand, drawing up his knees, planting his elbows upon them, and resting his burning head upon his hands. “Wait a bit,” he said. “I want to think; I want to think; I want to think. Ah–h–h!” he groaned, at last. “Who could have imagined it? Who could have thought it? A trick—a ruse!”
Then springing up he looked sharply round, to see that the boat’s crew were grouped together watching him wonderingly, and that seemed to bring him to himself at once. He turned sharply upon Rodd and gave him a grave nod of the head, and said quietly—
“I am afraid you are right, my boy. Morny, my lad, I told your father that in this expedition you should be to me as my son. Let me play the father to you now, and tell you that it is your duty to act as a man.”
“Act as a man, sir—” began Morny.
“Yes, my boy; act and not talk. Aboard, every one of you, my lads,” he continued, to the sailors. “I am afraid we have been wiled away here by a cunning trick, for what reason remains to be proved. But whatever it means, we are twelve staunch men with our duty before us, and that is, to get back as quickly as possible to the schooner and the brig. I may be deceived, but I believe we are the victims of a plot, and if so I am afraid it will go hard with that Spaniard when we meet. Now, then, I don’t know how long it will take, but we have got to do it, and when we get back to our schooner, no matter what has happened, there’s ten guineas apiece as a sort of prize-money for the brave lads who have helped to pull us through.”
A loud excited cheer burst from the crew, and several voices broke in afterwards with something indistinguishable amidst the noise.
“What’s that? What’s that I hear?” cried the doctor sharply to Joe Cross.
“The lads say they don’t want no ten guineases, sir, but they’d all give as much as that to get hold of that dirty Spaniel by the neck.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the doctor. “Now then, not ten guineas, but twenty, for the man among you who can guide us through this wilderness of waters back to our stout Devon boat. Now then, who’s the one among you who can act as guide?”
A dead silence fell upon the group, and for the first time since their start a black storm-cloud began to spread slowly over the sky.