WISHING IT ON MR. SAMBO
"Oho!" breathed young Reade, as he crouched low behind the fringe of bushes, peering toward the beach.
It was now somewhat past midnight. For three hours Tom had been scouting stealthily along this shore section, well to the west of the breakwater.
For, in pondering over the explosions, Tom had come to the conclusion that the blow-outs on the retaining wall, however accomplished, were controlled from a point to the westward of the sea wall.
This conclusion had been rather a simple matter to a trained engineer. Tom had witnessed the flash of one explosion, and that, as he remembered, had sprung up at the west side of the wall. Moreover, the appearance and condition of the wall, at the point of each explosion, had shown that the attack in each case must have been made at the west side of the wall.
And now, after nearly three hours of work, Tom Reade had come upon a real clue.
"Another blow-out is arranged for to-night, just as I had expected," Reade muttered, with an angry thrill, as he glanced at a figure down on the beach. "Moreover, my guess that the huge negro is the fellow who touches off the blow-outs has proved to be the correct one."
Down on the beach a big, black man was moving about stealthily. Though the spot was a lonely one, this scoundrel plainly intended to take no unnecessary risks of detection.
Just at the present moment the negro was placing in the water a curious-looking little raft that he had brought on one shoulder from its place of concealment. It was something like a flat-bottomed scow, the sides being just high enough to prevent whatever cargo it carried, from rolling off into the water.
The raft placed and secured to the shore, the negro crouched in his hiding place in a jungle of bushes. He soon reappeared, carrying four metal tubes.