"Give up!" said Ray. "Say, Rufe, did you ever think Norris would ever give up anything? Why——"
"Look here, Rufe," broke in Norris thrusting a pretty nugget under the cook's nose. "Does that look like giving up gold-hunting?"
Rufe's eyes bulged. "Is dat sho' 'nuff gold?" he queried.
And then we began with our story. And Rufe must have us over by the galley door to continue the tale, while he hurried dinner, for he said, "I jes' knows you-all is nigh about starved out."
The black sailors were squatted in a circle, up near the bows, when we came aboard, and dice rattled on the deck, with snaps of fingers and sharp orders spoken to the bones for their better performance. Julian said it was the dice kept them contented, day after day and they were at the game continuously.
During the meal our plans for the following days came to a head. It was the purpose to sail the Pearl round to and through the tortuous channel into Crow Bay. The schooner would go out from the cove under the land breeze, sometime between nine o'clock at night and morning, and the trade wind—from the northeast—would take her into Crow Bay the next day. Three of us would row in the little boat, down the bay to that isle, to see that the coast should be clear. The afternoon was not idle, for Norris was full of preparation for the reception of all that treasure—gold-dust; and there must be bins made in the schooner's hold, for, "we'll have to dump some of it in, like grain," he said. "We haven't time to build chests for it all." And then Robert and I were tired of the stain on our skins, and must have it off.
Before night spread over the region, Norris, with his big rifle, and Robert and I with our little ones, were in the skiff, moving slowly out on Crow Bay. There was no sign of a boat on the bay yet.
"I guess they got scared out," said Norris, "and are still lying in some cove, waiting for word from Duran."
In these tropics you sweep the bright daylight landscape with your eyes, noting the graceful palms bowing to you over the beach; then you close your eyes, count a few hundred slowly, open them again, and—presto! all is black night, and the palms have melted into eternity, or are dimly silhouetted against the night sky. The narrow crescent of the new moon was among the tops of the palms behind us.
Within the hour, we made landing on the isle. We dragged our boat up into the brush, and then moved back through the wood to the edge of the clearing. A light shone in the window of the hut. We crept up and looked in. That same portly black was there, and he was in the midst of preparations to turn into his bunk. In another minute he put out the light.