Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/401

Rh Through the glass from the deck, Sally's eyes followed the figures as they left behind them the green-black density of the woods, and bore that coffin-shaped thing on their shoulders, over the strip of sand, whose lively pink flush the gloom of the day had turned now to a bleak white bordering a leaden sea.

Into the rolling teeth of the breakers, head on they drove the boat, her gunwales bristling with oars. Threateningly she pitched and tossed, the weight of the chest almost dragging the stern under. But at last they gained the side of the North Star.

Chest and boat were hoisted over the rail; the anchor came up; the ship heeled to the breeze, and pointed north.

"Did you see any of the thieves?" Sally's voice called above the roar of the wind.

"Nary a one alive," the bosun replied.

"Or dead?"

"One by the chest."

"That was?"

"The tow-headed one with the complexion of a gal and the heart of a hell-hound."

"The others'll escape in the yacht."

"No fear o' that, though there's no watch aboard her. The bay's full of long grey revenue cutters with fins and teeth, and though I don't know much about the ways o' engines, I'd swear they won't run without these."

In his brawny fists he clinked the round, threaded metal things he had just taken from his pocket.

"Old Joe; the sailor in South Bay; the ornery old man; and