“Here!” the girl whispered in his ear. “It’s just up there. The trail’s almost straight up. Follow me. Be sure of your footing.”
Her dark form loomed above him, but from her lips came no panting breath. “Fit,” he told himself. “As fit as a marathon runner.” A moment of wild scrambling and he stood beside her. At that instant the clouds parted and, for a space of seconds, the harbor lay beneath them in all the dark, majestic beauty of a moonlight night. Almost directly beneath them, a golden ball, lay the reflection of the moon. Off to the left a dark bulk loomed.
“Island.” Berley caught her breath as she whispered: “Kidnaper’s island.”
Then a black cloud obscured the light and the harbor. The distant shore lay beneath them, a vast well of darkness.
Darkness? Not quite all. From the far end of that long, narrow island on which their log prison stood, a pale yellow light shone.
“They are there,” the girl whispered.
“At least some of them,” Red amended.
“We can go down this way.” Once again the girl led.
In time they came to a spot Red recognized, the short dock at which they had disembarked on the previous night. The rowboat they had taken from the island still bumped at the dock.
To Red, reared as he had been close to the slips where rusty ore boats lay at anchor, a boat, any sort of boat, had an all but irresistible appeal.