There was nothing. No sign, no sound save the monotonous moaning of the waves upon the beach.
He walked a little way, searching, his revolver held ready for action. Still he saw nothing. Reluctantly he turned back toward the cave.
He lay down again but not to sleep. For a long time he lay there, watchful, alert. As the first faint grey of dawn tinged the sky he relaxed his vigil and fell asleep.
CHAPTER XIX
A PERPLEXING MYSTERY
It was not hard in the reassuring sunlight of the “morning after” for Phil to tell himself that his experience of the night before had been nothing more than a peculiarly vivid dream.
There was the temptation to tell the fellows about it, but on second thought he decided to hold his peace. The memory of how they had laughed when he had thought he heard a shot was still with him and he was not anxious to give them the chance to laugh a second time.
Besides, as has been said before, he was almost convinced himself that his imagination had played a trick upon him. And yet—that man’s figure, sinister, stealthy, stealing from the shadows of the cave into the blackness of the night. He could have sworn at the moment that he saw it. Was it possible for his eyes so to betray him?
Since there was no one to answer the question for him, Phil wisely decided to leave it unanswered and put the incident, as far as was possible, completely out of his mind.
This was not so hard a task, either, seeing that there was plenty to occupy his mind in excited plans for the recovery of the treasure.
However, these plans were destined to be nipped in the bud. For the sun which, early in the morning had given promise of a glorious day, went suddenly behind a cloud and there was that dead, breathless stillness in the air which the boys had come to know invariably presaged a storm.