He spread his hands. Evidently he deemed the prospects to be very good. Mr. Dacre nodded thoughtfully. Then the two men produced old envelopes and stubs of pencils and fell to figuring. This didn’t interest the boys much.
“Let’s slip outside and see what’s doing,” suggested Tom to Jack, after a while.
The younger lad agreed willingly. In a few minutes they were on deck. Overhead the wind roared and shouted, but on deck, sheltered as it was by the wooded, rocky point, things were comparatively quiet. Ashore they could hear the wind humming and booming in the trees like the notes of a mighty pipe organ. Even where they stood the balsam-scented breath of the forest was borne to them. They inhaled it delightedly.
“Not unlike Maine,” decided Tom.
All at once, as they stood there enjoying the fresh air after the stuffy cabin, Jack gripped Tom’s arm tightly.
“Hark!” he whispered.
Above the hurly-burly of the wind and the clamor of the waters as they dashed against the shore, they could hear a voice upraised in what was, apparently, a tone of command. Then came a loud sound of metal rattling. The sound was unmistakable to any one who had any knowledge of seafaring.
“Some vessel’s dropped her anchor not far from us,” decided Tom.
“Right,” assented Jack, “and strain your eyes a bit and you’ll see that she’s a schooner.”
Peering into the darkness it was possible to make out, after a good deal of difficulty, the black outlines of two masts. They were barely perceptible, though, and if the boys had not heard the rattle of the anchor chain and thus known in which direction to look, they would not have made them out at all.