by
the point, and they won't trouble you with that complaint long. Do you,
Peter, give them a hail when I cry, 'Now!' If they stop, well and good;
if they come on--why, you won't be asking them to walk right in!" says
I.

He took my meaning and set to work like the brave man that he was. Very
deliberately and carefully I saw him slip out of his coat and fold it
up neatly at his feet. He had a rifle in his hand and a pile of
ammunition on the floor, and now he opened his Remington and began to
fill it. For my part, I stood by the gun's shield, and from that place,
covered by a ring of steel, I looked out across the awaking sea.
Impatience, doubt, hope, fear--these I forgot in the minutes which
passed while the gig crept slowly across that silver pool. The silence
was so great that a man might almost breathe it. Slow, to be sure, she
was; and every man who has waited at a post of danger knows what it
means to see a strange sail creeping up to you foot by foot, and to be
asking yourself a dozen times over whether she be friend or enemy, a
welcome consort or a rogue disguised. But there is an end to all
things, even to the minutes of such suspense; and I bear witness that I
never heard sweeter music than the ringing hail which Mister Bligh sent
across the still sea to the eight men in the gig, and to any other his
message might concern.

"Ahoy!" cries he, "and what may you be wanting, my hearties, and what
flag do you sail under?"

Now, if ever a hail out of the night surprised eight men, this was the
occasion and this the scene of it. They had come back from the pillaged
ship believing that the sea-gate of the house stood open to them and
that friends held it in all security. And here upon the threshold a
strange voice hails them; they are asked a question which turns every
ear towards the rock, sends every man's hand to the gun beside him.
Instantly, their own vile deeds accusing them, they cry, "Discovery!"
They tell each other, I make sure, that Czerny's house is in the
possession of strangers. They are stark mad with curiosity, and unable
for a spell to say a word to us.

They would not speak a word, I say; their oars were still, their boat
drifted lazily to the drowsy tide. If they peered with all their eyes a
the rock from which the voice came, but little consolation had they of
the spectacle. The shadows spoke no truth, the gate hid the unknown;
they could read no message there. Neither willing to go back nor t