lso, but shivering at the touch of sodden couches, he
returned to the deck outside and fell to pacing back and forth in hope
of adding to the fatigue earned in the hold. Tired he was--even to
pain--but while his limbs would keep still when he lay down, his eyes
refused to close, and every tiny sound from nearby waters or distant
jungle hummed and burbled in his ears until his head was full of waking
thoughts that absolutely prohibited sleep.

He gave up the struggle after a short while and determined to remain
awake. The whimsical idea came to him that by so resolving he would
surely drop asleep. But with the resolve came a wider wakefulness; and
as the lagging moments crept by, he found a new interest in the vague
and shadowy outline of the _Padang_ at the wharf. The schooner was
deserted to the eye, even in daylight. Certainly there were a few men
aboard her, and a watchman never failed to oppose an attempt to mount
the gangway, but visible activity had been absent from her vicinity for
days. Now Little found himself watching her dark blurr with keen vision,
and the feeling stole upon him that she was full of men.

There were no audible voices to convince him. Rather it was an
indefinable murmur that rose from her decks, an aura of sound. Sight
gave him no corroboration, although he went aloft halfway to the main
crosstrees with the shrewd idea that by so doing he would secure a
downward sight that must surely reveal a gleam in the skylight if any of
her official crew were in the cabin.

He saw nothing, but Little was no longer a complete greenhorn. "Covered
the skylight up, of course!" he muttered, and watched the schooner
closer yet because of his decision.

At length, after an age of watching that made his eyes hot and weary, he
caught a swift, almost fanciful, yet undoubted flash of light at a
porthole in the quarter. It was the sort of flash that would be seen
through an imperfectly curtained porthole of a stateroom if the door
from the lighted saloon were quickly opened and shut.

"Cabin's occupied, that's sure!" decided Little and ran to wake Barry.

"Losing no time, are they?" muttered the skipper, waking in an instant
with all his senses alert. He concluded that Leyden's men had watched
the operation of raising the _Barang_, and everything was being held
ready for a dash down the river the moment the raised vessel swung aside
from the channel. Together the two friends peered at the schooner,
striving to