I have said that the Southern Cross was a topsail schooner, and at this moment the crowd of laborers away out at the fishing ground had their attention drawn by the movement going on upon the rigging of the foremast; men were swarming up, and a fellow was out on the yard—he looked at that distance like a fly against the blue. He came down, as did the others, and he had scarcely reached the deck when a white jet of smoke shot like a plume from the bow of the Southern Cross, and the noise of a gun came on the wind.
Something black and struggling, and just like a spider running up a thread, went from the deck of the Southern Cross to the yardarm, touched it, and then sank some half dozen feet, and swung dangling against the sky. It was the murderer.
CHAPTER XII
THE POWER OF SCHUMER
During it all Floyd had kept his eyes turned away. When the men had come running aft with the halyard line they had knocked against him, making him shift his position, and now, with the dead man swinging aloft, he walked over to the weather side, seemingly an impassive figure, with his rifle under his arm keeping guard.
As he stood looking over the water to the camping place he saw Isbel. She had come out on the sands and she was standing with her hand shading her eyes. She must have been a witness of the whole tragedy, and she stood, motionless as a figure carved from stone—for a moment. Then she turned, and just as though something were in pursuit of her, she ran, making for the grove, into which she disappeared.
Floyd swore under his breath. That the girl should have been allowed to see such a thing struck him as a monstrous fact. Gentle, kindly, and willing she had been, almost unknown to himself, the one bright spot in his life on the island. The one human thing to keep life warm. Schumer had been a companion who had never grown into anything more than an acquaintance; Isbel, though he had talked to her as little as he would have talked to a dog, had been a friend. He did not understand her at all; she had lived her own life, thought her own thoughts, and said little; a child living in a child's world of which he knew nothing, but she had somehow kept his heart warm, and now she had been allowed to see this, the doing to death of one of her own people in the broad light of day.
What could she know of the justice of the case? He turned to Schumer, who had come toward him now that everything was finished, and, taking him by the arm, led him to the weather rail; they leaned over the rail as they talked.
"Do you know," said Floyd, "that child has seen the whole of this business?"