"Suppose it should be far into the night before the ship comes in sight," Mary suggested, for she was beginning to feel cramped and uncomfortable. "Let's not wait for so long a time as that."
"No, we will not," Dorothy assented with a yawn. But the next moment she was all alive, with her small fingers holding Mary's arm in a tight clutch as she whispered excitedly: "Look, Mary—there it is! There was one light, and 't is gone. Now there are the two; and there comes the third, as Jack said."
The girls arose and stood erect in eager interest, looking out over the water, where, several hundred yards from shore, the lights gleamed and then disappeared. And now their eyes, accustomed to the gloom, discerned a slim blackness, as of a man's form, appear on the highest point of rocks above the cave; and then a soft glow of tremulous light illumined the darkness.
While they watched this, they were startled to see a taller figure spring from the shadows, and a second later the two seemed to melt into one enlarged blur, as if they were struggling.
Quick as thought the boyish form beside Mary broke from the bushes and sped with flying steps toward the peak.
"Dot—Dot—come back!" cried Mary, regardless now of who might hear her. "Whatever are you thinking to do?"
A low but clear reply came to her from over Dorothy's shoulder.
"The lanterns—they must be put out, else Jack may be hurt!"
On, on, she flew, with no fear of the peril into which she might be rushing,—with no heed of her unmaidenly garb. Her mind held but the one thought,—that the lanterns must be extinguished, for danger threatened her brother and his companions if they should seek to land unwarned.
So absorbed were the men in their fierce wrestling that neither of them saw nor heard the slight figure that came straight up to them, and then, dashing at the lanterns, sent them flying into the water beneath.