CHAPTER XXV
The Tables Turned
Gripping the cutlass, Jasper Minalto followed the Third Officer into the open air, or rather to the edge of the belt of undergrowth that marked the fugitives' hiding-place.
This part of the island had undergone a complete transformation. Trees, scrub, and grass had vanished, leaving an expanse of blackened, still smouldering ashes. The lagoon, previously screened from the mouth of the cave, was fully exposed to an extent of almost a mile. On it, riding to a cable that hung perpendicularly from the hawse-pipe, was the schooner, with her sails lowered but loosely furled in a way that no self-respecting seaman would have been guilty of performing. There was the camp, too, with the shelter constructed from the wreckage of the life-boat lying upon the ground, and a fire still burning in the fire-place.
But what particularly attracted the attention of the two men was the sight of half a dozen or more motionless figures lying in strange attitudes upon the ground.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Burgoyne. "Minalto, my lad, your li'l ole cask has done us a good turn. They're all dead drunk. Two, four, six, eight of them. One's not accounted for. We'll risk that one. Stop here, and don't let yourself be seen. I'll go back and bring Mostyn along."
Burgoyne returned to the cave.
"Game for a big stunt, Peter?" he inquired.
"Rather, I'm on," replied Mostyn promptly. "What's doing?"