CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE FATA MORGANA.
The former horror of my companions for Antonio was now revived and increased by the mystery of his almost supernatural escape, and their eyes wandered upward to the brow of the steep cliff whereon he lurked. It was visible about two miles from where we were assembled on the beach, and presented a rugged and savage outline.
Some of them, among whom were Hislop and Probart the carpenter, urged that at all hazards we should still attempt to storm his nest, and punish him by lynch law.
"With his revolver, rusty as it is," said I, "he is as strong as he was when on board the Eugenie, and when he held the cabin against us all; he could shoot each of us down at leisure, and with his knife finish what the bullet might leave undone."
"We can fire the jungle," said Tattooed Tom, "and burn him out like a rat."
Others proposed that we should act as we had hitherto done—keeping a strict watch upon our boat and property, and permitting Antonio to remain unmolested until the arrival of a ship, to whose captain we should commit the whole affair.
We came to no decision, but talked a great deal while supping on the roasted kid in the moonlight at the door of the hut; but ere long there occurred an incident so strange, and apparently so unaccountable, that it soon decided the intentions of our crew.
The moon had risen, as it only rises in these latitudes, with the brilliance of day, and with a white light that is dazzlingly pure. From where we were squatted among the sea-grass that bordered the shore, the whole sweep of the bight or bay which we had first entered, and on the margin of which we had built our hut beside the rocks, could be seen vividly in all its details.
It was an opening of about two miles from headland to headland. Each of these were bold and rugged bluffs of great height—one being that stupendous rock which was tufted with trees, and which (with the mountain now shrouded in light clouds) we had first descried from the sea.
The beach between was a complete bow of white sand, beyond which were thick groves of trees, and some wild palmettoes that tufted the dark rocks which formed the horns of the bay.