There was a moment's suspense—an awful suspense, for I didn't feel sure they hadn't come to murder me—and then, apparently satisfied, the men withdrew; the footsteps retreated as stealthily as they had approached; and the door was closed again noiselessly behind them.
They had only come, after all, to make sure I was asleep and had heard nothing. Whatever this business might be on which they were engaged, they evidently meant to conduct it with the utmost secrecy. Whatever these things meant, they did not mean murder.
CHAPTER X.
Next morning, as I lay on the sofa in the verandah, humming and idling, with Kea still stitching away at the very last touches on her wedding garments beside me, I saw by a sudden glitter in my mirror that Frank was anxious to heliograph me a message. Pulling the cord that moved my looking-glass, I flashed back "Well?" Frank answered by signal, "Big ship off Hilo. Gunboat apparently. Flying British colours. A party is landing."
I signalled back by code, "Try to attract their attention if possible, and ask them what's their business in Hawaii."
For a few minutes Frank seemed engaged in establishing communications with the newly-arrived gunboat, and made me no reply; but I soon saw he had succeeded in forcing himself upon their notice at last, for he was flashing back question and answer rapidly now, as I judged by the frequent and hasty movements of his dancing mirror.
By and by he turned the ray upon my sofa again.
"Gunboat Hornet," he signalled in swift flashes, "Pacific squadron: party of twenty men sent ashore by admiral's orders to make arrangements for observing total eclipse of the moon on Saturday evening."
I was glad to hear it, for we began to feel the want of civilized society.