Part 20 (2/2)

”Well, we're in some kind of a harbor,” I told Ray.

”But where's the _Pearl_?” returned he.

”I hope she'll make the same harbor,” I said.

The storm blew over, and broad daylight came once more. We watched continually at the window of our prison; but while we saw land all about, beaches and palms, and hills beyond, no vessel showed to us. If the _Pearl_ were near she must be off our starboard. But we were not left long in doubt.

The bolt clicked, and our door opened. Duran appeared, and four blacks, who set to work to bind our arms again to our sides. We were led up on deck.

There lay the _Pearl_, some hundreds of yards away. My heart jumped at sight of her.

Accompanied by Duran, we were hurried over the side into a boat, which set off immediately toward a beach to the south-east. We could see our friends but imperfectly on the deck of the _Pearl_, where their figures moved about in some hurry.

We were nearing the sh.o.r.e when we saw a boat put off from the _Pearl_.

Then a second boat moved out from the _Orion_, filled with blacks, bearing guns. A few minutes, and we were startled by the boom of an explosion, and smoke rose from the _Pearl_.

My heart sank. But then I saw the blacks in the water, and their boat seemed knocked to bits. The smoke dispersed, and I saw the _Pearl_ as right as ever.

”They've got a cannon,” murmured Ray in my ear. ”That is Norris.”

The blacks swam toward the _Orion_. Duran gazed, rage in his look; and he swore roundly. He directed the men to a hurried landing. We were hustled out, pushed in among the cocoa palms, thence back into the brush. We came to a stop, and the four blacks, leaving their two guns with Duran, went back. It was doubtless to pull the boat up into concealment; for they soon appeared again, and the march was taken up.

What direction we went I had no means of knowing, but the ground gradually rose, and we came to where the undergrowth was less dense.

This proved an agreeable change--if anything in our situation could be called agreeable, for in the briars and brush, Ray's and my arms fast, as they were, we could not protect our faces from the growth, that whacked and scratched us, as we were pushed hurriedly forward.

At last, after some casting about, Duran had the blacks get down on their hands and knees and literally drag the two of us into a most dense thicket, Duran going before, cutting a way. Many yards we went thus, sc.r.a.ping the ground; and we were finally dropped at the foot of a great tree which appeared to stand alone in the midst of the thicket. Here was a small s.p.a.ce free of thicket growth; knives removed encroaching pieces of growth. Bags of food, that had been hanging by the necks of the blacks, were transferred to the low-hanging limbs of the trees, and preparations were made for some stay.

Duran crawled out of the place again, doubtless to reconnoiter.

Ray called after him as he started off on hands and knees--”Hey' there!

You!” Duran stopped and looked back. ”Don't be late back for supper,”

continued Ray.

Duran cursed him and went, upon which Ray turned with a serious face on one of the blacks, he that spoke English, and said, ”Your boss' Sunday School education has been neglected. What do you say we start a mission right here?”

The black grinned. It was not his first experience of Ray's drollery.

We had indeed cause for cheer--knowing that our friends were so near to us. I was now sure that they had fathomed our hidden message. We felt confident, too, that Duran would not attempt again to get us away on board the _Orion_; and that one way or another we would win back to the _Pearl_. Ray and I contrived to talk on these things, by veiling our speech beyond the comprehension of that one black listener.

”And where do you think they got their dog?” said Ray, meaning, of course, the barker--cannon.

”Back in that town, of course,” I returned. ”I've no doubt if we'd have gone sight-seeing, we'd found many old dogs of that species on the tumble-down ramparts.”

”Just like Norris,” said Ray. ”And I suppose the 'skunk's' new game of 'p.u.s.s.y wants a corner' is like the old one.”

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