“It is the villain, the bad white man.” Mona put her hands to her eyes. “It is he, yet I cannot see him perish.”
Without knowing why she did it, Dot followed her example. For a full moment she remained with covered eyes. Then, suddenly realizing the peril of their position, she uncovered her eyes and scrambled to her feet to exclaim:
“Curlie! Mona! The ship will explode. We are in great danger! Back! Back! We must get far back into the forest!”
Even with this warning Mona paused for a last look. The ship was all in flames. The dory, with its human freight, was moving rapidly away. But the swimming white man, where was he? Gone. Only where he had last been seen, far below the surface, was a movement as of a white sheet.
“The White Shadow of the sea,” said Mona as she turned to go racing away after her friends.
They had beaten their way back into the brush for a distance of a hundred rods when of a sudden, the very earth beneath them seemed torn in pieces. So great was the explosion that they were thrown to the earth and fine particles of debris were sprinkled over them.
“That,” said Mona, “is the end of the revolution. And perhaps of all revolutions. That heartless seller of arms will visit us no more.”
Ten minutes later they were lying once more upon the rock, looking down. All the overhanging bushes and palms had been blown away. The bay, a silent, beautiful blue, lay beneath them. Only drifting fragments remained to tell the story. A dory swamped near the farther shore told that the crew had escaped.
“But what is that white thing over there?” Dot asked, pointing away to the left.
“That,” said Curlie after one good look, “is the White Shadow of the sea.”