"Eet is not alway so easy to tell when dere will be no moon," he said.
"And der wind, eet blow effery way—-in one day."
"Never mind,—-just wait," came the answer. "One o' these nights, perhaps to-morrow, we'll——-"
Again the sentence was lost. Hugh frowned impatiently. However, as they went on talking he heard some more of their designs—-in particular, the fact that the dynamite was to be used for blowing up a railroad bridge.
Thinking that he had heard enough by this time and knowing that if they discovered him he would be captured as a spy, Hugh began to wonder how and when he should leave his hiding place and crawl back to camp with the least risk of being observed. At any moment the men might emerge from the hut or others of their gang might join them. Yet he did so want to learn where they had come from, and whether their vessel was lying at anchor somewhere among these many islands! So he lay there, flat on the sand, scarcely daring to breathe lest he should be heard, heartily wishing the men would give some more definite hint of their purposes, and devoutly hoping that none of his friends, missing him from camp, would come in search of him with shouts and calls!
"That would be fierce!" he whispered inaudibly. "That would give me away and scare off these jail birds mighty quick!"
Suddenly the distant tchug-tchug of a gasoline motor boat came to his ears. Raising himself on his elbows, he peered over the stump, out across the glittering blue water, and saw a good-sized dory, manned by a solitary individual who wore light oilskins, coming swiftly toward the hut on the beach.
"That must be the motor boat that passed our camp last night," thought Hugh. "I feel sure now, surer than ever, that I heard it go by in the darkness. But it's coming over from the mainland now. Wonder who's that man at the tiller?"
Down he sank again and waited.
Presently the motor-dory drew up alongside the strip of beach in front of the bamboo hut and came to a standstill. The man in oilskins called out:
"Hey! You-all in thar!"