“She’s gettin’ light,” said Tommy Bull.
At that moment the skipper started. With a hoarse ejaculation leaping from his throat he stared with bulging eyes towards the hills upon which a shaft of sunlight had fallen. Then he gripped Tommy Bull by the arm.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
“What?” the terrified clerk exclaimed. “Who’s what, man? Where––where? What you talkin’ about?”
The skipper pointed to the patch of sunlight on the hills. “That!” he gasped.
“’Tis a man!” said the clerk.
“We’re cotched!” the skipper groaned.
The rat-like little clerk bared his teeth.
Bill o’ Burnt Bay and the boys of the Spot Cash had seen what the lifting fog disclosed––the Black Eagle moored to the rocks of the Little Pony and 261 unloading. But they had not fathomed the mystery. A mystery it was, however, and a deep one. To solve it they came down the hill towards the schooner in a body and were presently face to face with skipper and clerk on the deck. The crew went on with the unloading; there was never a hint of hesitation or embarrassment. And the skipper of the Spot Cash was serenely made welcome. Whatever rat-like impulse to bite may have been in the heart of the little clerk, when Bill o’ Burnt Bay came over the crest of the hill, it had now vanished in discreet politeness. There was no occasion for biting. Had there been––had the crew of the Black Eagle been caught in the very act of scuttling the ship––Tommy Bull would no doubt have driven his teeth in deep. Even amateur scoundrels at bay may be highly dangerous antagonists. These were amateur scoundrels, to be sure, and good-hearted in the main; but they were not yet by any means at bay.