He gave me a look full of anxiety as he handed to Cynthia the eagerly desired glass.
"They are pulling up against the current. Now they'll come to our bathing place for water," said Cynthia. "Oh, how I wish I had some!"
"If they find our provisions we're done for," whispered the Skipper in my ear. But, as Providence willed, the men did not disembark upon our side of the stream, or rather the side where we had made our camp, but upon the other, or right bank, if the right bank of a stream is the same as that of a river, the one on your right when you are looking toward its mouth. They hauled their boats up on the shelving beach, and then the man in the stern stood up and gave orders. We could hear him now. He spoke in a singularly musical voice, in a sort of broken English. The others called him Mauresco, as near as we could understand.
It seems incredible that but a few years before the time when I was cast away the United States Government, and the other reputable nations of the earth as well, were paying yearly tribute to the Dey of Algiers. And although peace had been declared in the year 1805, it was a hollow one so far as the roaming bands of pirates were concerned. Many of them made their refuge on the Isle of Pines, and were so strongly intrenched there that it seemed that no one had ever thought of trying to dislodge them. Vessels started from American ports hoping to arrive at their destinations in spite of these maurauders, and that Captain Schuyler had not been annoyed by them in his southern voyages argues in favour of his luck, and not of his prudence.
The Skipper looked again.
"Those ain't empty casks," he said. He talked slowly, moving the glass about as he followed the movements of the landing party. "See how that one thumped down on the beach. I believe I heard it. Bet a red herring to a sperm whale there's something in those casks!"
"Good Santo Domingo or Jamaica rum, probably," said I.
"Maybe, in some of 'em."
I wish that I could describe the strange appearance of those lawless men as they surrounded the casks and rolled them up on the beach. I thought it strange that blue, yellow, green, and purple predominated. There was also the shade which my wife calls pink, but of a rich or darker colour, red or crimson, there was none to be seen. I discovered the reason of this, however, when the third boat put her nose against the beach.
"Those fellows mean to make a night of it," said the Skipper. "Call me a soldier if they don't."