"I want something beyond that," he muttered. "But—you say there were six men altogether—six?"
"I've enumerated them." I replied. "Two Europeans—four Chinese."
He turned a quick eye on the naval officer.
"Then one of 'em's escaped—somehow!" he exclaimed. "There's only five here—and every man Jack is dead! Where's the other!"
"One did escape," said I. I, too, looked at the lieutenant. "He got off in a boat just as you and your men were approaching the bar yonder—I thought you'd see him."
"No," he answered, shaking his head. "We didn't see anybody leave. The yawl lay between us and him most likely. Where did he land?"
"Behind that spit," I replied, pointing to the place. "He vanished, from where I stood, behind those black rocks. That was just as you crossed the bar. And he can't have gone far away, for he was certainly wounded as he left the yawl—a man fired at him from the bows. He fired back."
"We heard those shots," said the lieutenant, "and we found a chap—Englishman—in the bows, dying, when we boarded her. He died just afterwards. They're all dead—the others were dead then."
"Not a man alive!" I exclaimed.
Scarterfield cast a glance astern—the glance of a man who draws back the curtain from a set stage.