“I don’t see much honor in what you and your countrymen have done,” rejoined Frank warmly; “it looks to me like plain everyday stealing and worse.”
“Perhaps,” replied the other with a slight shrug. “Our points of view are different. Now,” he said abruptly, “I must be going. We must be well on our way north by dark for the inland channels are very intricate to navigate in and our boat draws a good deal of water.
“Recollect what I have said and be warned,” he repeated impressively.
As he spoke there came a low growl of thunder in the distance and a heavy splotch of rain fell on the back of Frank’s hand. They all looked up astonished. So engrossed had they been by the remarkable scene that had just transpired that they had not noticed that for some time the sky had been growing blacker and that one of the sudden storms, peculiar to the tropics, had been advancing towards them with all the rapidity that marks the advent of a “Black Squall,” as they are sometimes called. The sky had in a few minutes become overcast completely with an ominous slate-colored pall. A hush as if of expectancy had fallen on the jungle about them.
“You are likely to get a ducking if you don’t git aboard before this yere squall breaks,” growled Ben as his seaman’s eye noted the signs of bad weather. The Oriental swept the overcast sky with a quick glance. He nodded.
“Good-bye and thank you,” he said, and the next minute, guided by one of the moonshiners, he vanished down the trail leading to the shore. The moonshiners turned to the adventurers with sardonic looks as he disappeared.
“You ’uns might better have let us hang him,” said one of them, “he’ll work you a pesky lot of mischief yet.”
“I don’t believe he will trouble us any more,” rejoined Frank, who had been impressed by the man’s earnest manner and evident gratitude. How soon and how literally his words were to be fulfilled he little imagined.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BLACK SQUALL.
The boys were so engrossed in discussing the sudden conversion of their late enemy to a friend—or at least to no longer a source of menace—that it was not till a good ten minutes later that Frank suddenly exclaimed: