Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/303

Rh again and commenced a second search, with no more luck, however, than on the preceding occasion. Wetherell and our assailants seemed to have completely disappeared.

About six o'clock, thoroughly worn out, we returned to the beach, where the boat was in waiting for us. What was to be done? We could not, for obvious reasons, leave the island and abandon the old gentleman to his fate, and yet it seemed useless to remain there when he might have been spirited away elsewhere.

Suddenly one of the hands, who had been loitering behind, came into view waving something in his hand. As he came closer we could see that it was a sheet of paper, and when he gave it into my hands I read as follows:

"If you cross the island to the North beach you will find a small cliff with a large cave, a little above highwater mark. There you will discover the man for whom you are searching." There was no signature to this epistle and the writing was quite unfamiliar to me. But I had no reason to doubt its authenticity.

"Where did you discover this?" I inquired of the man who had brought it.

"Fastened to one of them prickly bushes up on the beach there," he answered.

"Well, the only thing for us to do now is to set off for the North beach and hunt for the cave. Two of you had better take the boat back to the yacht and ask the captain to follow us round."

As soon as the boat was under weigh we picked up our rifles and set off for the North beach. It was swelteringly hot by this time, and, as may be imagined, we were all dead tired. However, we should be amply repaid if