“Back we go to the ship, Papa Ramon,” readily agreed Richard Cary. “I feel like a fool, but I’ll confess I am creepy. I am whistling to keep up my courage. If there is a curse on this Cocos Island, we may as well get out from under. When it comes to fighting with spirits, a machine gun is no use at all.”
“Quick, Ricardo! Get the sailors to carry me in the hammock. I cannot walk out of the tent.”
Cary lifted him from the cot. He clung like a frightened child. At the lusty shout of all hands, the men came boiling out of the tents. They slept with one eye open. Was it another attack? They crowded around their captain. He was at a loss to explain it. The thing seemed too preposterous for words. While he hesitated, Ramon Bazán plucked at his shirt and implored him to make haste.
“Jump out of this. Vamoose! To the ship! On your way, boys!” thundered Captain Cary.
They obeyed on the instant. Some new danger threatened. El Capitan was very much alarmed. When he gave an order like this, it meant something. Excitedly they straggled toward the trail. A grotesque exodus for brave men, if they had known it, and Richard Cary reproached himself as a womanish coward, but he was in a cold sweat of impatience, nevertheless, to set foot on the deck of his ship. Trudging behind his men, he found himself glancing back like an urchin in a haunted lane.
The pace slackened. One or two sailors ventured timid questions. He was still evasive. He gruffly mentioned a warning message. They inferred that perhaps Don Miguel O’Donnell had come sailing back to make a stealthy landing. Bewildered but trustful, they plodded on, swinging lanterns and sleepily chattering. The two who bore Señor Bazán in the hammock halted to ease their shoulders. The others waited.
A terrific explosion rocked the earth. The detonation stunned them. The first thought was that a volcanic eruption had blown up through the dead crater. They rushed to the nearest opening in the jungle. They could see the dark loom of the hill climbing to the little lake in the bowl at the top. It was undisturbed.
They turned to look in the direction of the camp. The sky was a glare of crimson. They could hear the crash of rock falling from the cliff, of débris raining from the air. Then came a roaring, grinding sound like a landslide. Huddled together, the fugitives were dumb until Captain Cary spoke up:
“I have a notion we pulled out just in time. Let’s go take a look.”
They rushed back to the end of the trail and out into the clearing beyond the ravine where the tents had stood. There were no tents and no cocoanut palms. They had to climb over huge heaps of broken rock which had been jarred from the crumbling, fissured face of the cliff. Their excavation was buried many feet deep in earth and stones dislodged from the steep slopes above the cliff. Great ragged holes yawned in the gravel banks. Richard Cary took a lantern and explored the chaos. He returned to report to Señor Bazán who had been laid on a blanket found wrapped around the splintered stump of a tree.