"For the camp, Cap'n, the camp! If you ever ran in your life, run now."
I sped along the beach, taking it just where the retreating water had left the sand hard and firm, the Skipper pounding along after me on his fat, short legs. I did not think of the danger of being seen by those on board the vessel, and, had I done so, I should have been sure that they were busy with their signals and their rounding to. As I ran, I turned my head now and then to watch the approach of the craft. She was a beautiful sight, the long, low schooner, all sails set, pointing directly for the shore. She ran so far in, that one would think that they meant to run directly up on the beach, but I argued that their confidence bespoke their knowledge of these waters. The wind had risen, and the trades were blowing freshly along, parallel with the shore line. We had reached the camp now. No one was to be seen. I turned for one more glimpse of the dreadful vessel, and as I looked she began to haul down her jibs. She rounded to, shot up head to wind, and lowered her foresail and dropped anchor pretty nearly together.
"You see, she knows her ground," said I.
The Skipper looked blankly about him. There was no sign of any of our party. There was no trace of any of the provisions or of our occupation of the place except a broken leaf or two and the remains of the fire, and that was heaped with wet sand, which was fast drying between the embers and the sun. I called "Cynthia! Cynthia!" frantically, regardless of the proprieties or of what the Skipper would think, or of her resentment if she heard me. There was no response. I ran here and there. I hallooed, I shouted, with no thought of whom else might hear. The four living, breathing human beings whom we had left at our camp had vanished out of life as if they had never existed! I ran anxiously through the undergrowth, and as I ran I stumbled over the one thing which the party in their flight or imprisonment, I knew not which, had forgotten.
It was the spyglass, lying closely hidden under some large leaves that grew upon the bank of the stream. I took it up and pointed it at the strange vessel. Her decks seemed alive with men. I saw that they were lowering some boats. They were coming ashore, then! We took turns in watching the movements of the crew, and discovered that they had got down two boats, and were preparing to lower a third. The first two were pulling directly for the cove or mouth of the stream.
"Comin' ashore for water, probably," said the Skipper. "Bo's'n has seen 'em probably, and has come down from his high horse long enough to hide the party. We're all right, Jones. Don't be so dreadful scared. They won't stay above half an hour."
I devoutly hoped not.
We now ran up the bank of the stream toward the face of rock which rose precipitately from the grass-grown valley. As I looked toward it, I could not fail to admire the beauty of its vine-covered precipice. On either side the hills sloped backward, but the cliff stood bold and vertical, like a verdure-covered fortress. Behind those leafy hiding places the guns of an enemy might lie secure until the day of need.
"Cynthia! Cynthia!" I shouted again. I never thought of calling any other name. "Cynthia" was all that I wanted to find. As we neared the face of the rock we perceived that the stream ran exactly out from its centre, through which it had made in the ages past an archway for itself. We stooped and drank of it. It was cold, as if it had emerged from a glacier. I bathed my head and my hands. The Skipper did the same. And then I took up my cry of "Cynthia! Cynthia!" I had begun to call now as a matter of habit, not at all as if I expected to obtain a response, and was looking around for a place where the Skipper and I could secrete ourselves until the pirates had procured their water, when I heard a whistle or sort of chirrup from somewhere above. I raised my eyes toward the sheer straight wall of rock, and saw a human face looking down. It was forty feet over my head, but I knew it better than I knew any face in the world. It was the face of Cynthia, smiling down on me as if we had never had any tiffs, as if no danger threatened, as if it were the most natural place for her to be, and, above all, as if she were glad to welcome me.
I could see nothing of Cynthia's body. Her head only protruded from a mass of vines which covered the face of the rock, from vines rooted in a spot a hundred feet above her head, and falling to the ground where I stood. The Skipper looked upward at the signal from Cynthia.