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Rh the jewels to himself,—that is, we didn't hear him tell them anything about the gems. But he said he wanted to get away from the island as quickly as possible, and without being seen by any of us, and he offered the Englishmen a thousand dollars in diamonds if they'd help him. They agreed to it, and all hands are waiting for some ship to come here and take them off."

"The ship I saw last night!" cried Dave, and told of the light on the ocean.

"It must be that ship!" exclaimed Phil.

"They'll get away sure, unless you can stop 'em," put in Merwell, and he seemed to be almost as interested as anybody. It galled him exceedingly to think that his companion in crime might escape.

"Roger, how did you learn this?" asked Dave.

"In a queer kind of a way. Billy Dill got on the trail of the three Englishmen first and we followed them to one of the caves. Then one of the Englishmen went away and after a while he came back with Jasniff, and all hands went to another cave, close to the shore. We got into one part of the cave and overheard what the crowd said, through a crack in the rocks. We might have confronted Jasniff and demanded the jewels, but we saw that the Englishmen were all armed and they looked to be in an ugly mood, and Captain