But to his astonishment all was utter silence. The only sound to be heard was the breaking of the waves on the sandy beach below.
“Funny I don’t hear any voices, either,” he muttered. “There must be more than one of them. Old Israel’s not the sort of man to come alone on an enterprise of this kind.”
Once more he paused after advancing a few steps, but as before no suspicious sounds broke the stillness.
“It can’t be spooks,” he thought, and the next minute had to smile at himself for entertaining such a silly notion.
“No, it’s human beings all right, and ones who have no good intentions toward us or they wouldn’t come sneaking around here like thieves in the night. I suppose that they saw that the Nomad had gone from her moorings and that the shanty was dark and assumed that there was no one here.”
He advanced still further and was now quite close up to the hut. Still all was silence within. Had it not been for the light in the window he would have deemed that he was the victim of a delusion. But there was no mistaking the fact of the light, and no mistaking, also, that it was a human agency that had kindled it.
“Thought there was no one here, eh?” muttered Joe, gritting his teeth. “Well, Harley and Co., here’s where you get the surprise of your young lives.”
He stepped forward with brisk determination and prepared to thrust the closed door open.
But the next instant he stopped dead.
“Well!” he ejaculated in startled amazement.