Ten minutes after Jeremy, his father appeared, wet to the skin and with a grim look around his bearded jaws. He, too, was spent with running, but he would have gone out again at once when he heard that Bob was still missing if the boys had not dissuaded him. Jeremy was sure that if Bob had escaped he would soon reach the cabin, for he had the lay of the island well in mind now.
And so, while Tom kept watch, they lay down with their clothes on before the fire.
CHAPTER XXX
The gray November morning dawned damp and cold. In the sheer exhaustion that followed on their adventure of the night before, Jeremy and his father slept heavily till close to nine o'clock, when Tom wakened them. His face was haggard with watching, and he looked so worried that they had no need to ask him if Bob had come in.
It was a gloomy party that sat down to the morning meal. The youngest could eat nothing for thinking of his chum's fate. While his father still spoke hopefully of the possibility that the boy might have found a hiding place which he dared not leave, Jeremy could only remember the frightful, scarred visage of Pharaoh Daggs looming in the torchlight. He knew that Bob would find little mercy behind that cruel face, and he could not throw off the conviction that the lad had fallen into the clutches of the pirates.
All day, standing at the loopholes, they waited for some sign either of Bob's return, or, what seemed more probable, an attack by the buccaneer crew. But as the hours passed no moving form broke the dark line of trees above them on the slope.
At length the dusk fell, and they gave up hope of seeing the boy again, though on the other score their vigilance was redoubled. The night went by, however, as quietly as though the island were deserted.
It was about two hours after sunrise that Jeremy stole out to give fodder to the sheep, penned in the stockade ever since the first alarm. He had been gone a bare two minutes when he rushed back into the cabin.
"Look father," he cried. "In the bay—there's a sloop coming in to anchor!"