, and,
whenever the opportunity offered, watched the beach and jungle. We were
kept on the alert, for we could not shake off the disconcerting
feeling that we were being watched from the brush by the pirates, getting
ready to ambush us at their leisure the minute we relaxed our vigilance.

"Look at Rajah," I said to Riggs. "He looks like a big red and green and
black lizard crouched up there in the rocks."

"That black boy is a big help," said Riggs. "The lad has more savvy than
ye'd think. He seems to know just what to do in any emergency. And
fight! A mad Arab that I shipped in Aden made for me one day in the Red
Sea. I didn't mind the chap till he was 'most on me, and a bit more and
he'd had me. Rajah got him with the kris.

"Lucky for Thirkle the boy had lost it last night when they had me going
over the bows! He was after Thirkle then, when a sea come over and upset
him, and away went his knife and--"

A pebble hit the water near us, and we looked up to see Rajah wildly
waving his arms to us. He had spied something on the other side of the
point.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PURSUIT ASHORE

Seizing our pistols we hurried ashore, and, when Rajah saw us coming, he
turned his attention to the beach again and levelled the glass in the
direction in which he had found danger.

The ledge was covered with loose fragments of soft volcanic stone, and
Riggs and I had to be careful in making the ascent to the top of the
ridge, for every time we sought a foothold we threatened to bring down an
avalanche of debris, and, not knowing what Rajah had seen, or how close
the pirates might be, we were afraid of giving the alarm with a crash
of loosened rocks.

I gained the top first, and bracing myself between a couple of boulders,
took a careful survey of the beach on the other side before crawling over
to Rajah. The point was an angle in the shore, and the beach ran off
sharply to the left, five hundred yards away.

The glare of the sun bothered me at first, and I thought the black boy
had given us a scare for nothing, until I detected a movement in the
fringe of the jungle close to where the shore line merged with the
water of the channel. I watched it closely for a minute and made out the
figure of a man moving cautiously.

Rajah wriggled himself over to me and I took the binoculars; and, when I
had put them on the man in the distance, I saw Buckrow walking slowly in
our direction with his head bent to the ground, as if