Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/257

245 "Why don't you say something? A gentleman should always have some answer for a question like that."

But all Ben could say was:

"You'll always look good to me, Sally."

It was quite enough and she gave him one of her impulsive little hugs.

Little cared they about any old thing like Age, even though her black slipper was even then stirring the indisputable evidence of his ghastly chemistry, there in the sands.

She looked down at the blanching skeletons.

"It is spooky—but let's just think it's a picture puzzle to piece together."

Again she surveyed the skeletons, then the hoops half gnawed away by rust.

"This part, anyway, is easy."

"Yes," Ben answered, "I could figure out that much."

"It's like a story book—isn't it?" she went on, counting the glistening breast bones with their rows of ribs, "there were eleven of them, real pirates and"—here her voice deepened to a rich contralto as she unconsciously assumed the phraseology of the old tales—"they must have counted their red gold and then drank deep of Jamaica rum.

"And then they fell out and quarrelled over the gold, and some of them fell on the others—and when it was over—there were left here—those eleven.

"Yes, Sally, that's just the way I figured it."

"But how long ago it must have been!"

"No one can tell that but it was a long time ago."

"I wonder how many escaped."