re.

"I'll stake my allowance of grog for the day," whispered Jake Irwin to
the two others, "that that man in the stern-sheets there, handlin' the
tiller, is Jose Leirya hisself, comin' ashore to make sure that the man
is really dead, and to secure they there papers what Evans said he stole
from the cabin; that's what's brought him back, I'll warrant. It's a
pity you didn't remember, sir, to take 'em from the body. Evans said
they was vallyble."

Roger, according to his promise, did not inform Jake that he had the
papers in his possession at that moment.

"Ss--sh!" whispered Jake, suddenly withdrawing his head from its point
of lookout, "here they come! God in heaven! why don't they go back to
the ship now they see as Evans is dead? What more do they want?
Surely, sir, we didn't leave nothin' about that'd show 'em we was here,
did we? I thought we cleared away all our traces."

"So we did," replied Roger, "so far as I can remember, that is. It is
perhaps only by chance that they are coming this way."

The men came nearer and nearer, and ventured out a little way along the
rocks. Presently they heard a voice at some distance away shout in
Spanish: "Ha, you, Gomez, go out to the end of that ledge and see if the
water is deep enough for boats to lie alongside the rocks."

A voice replied: "Ay, ay, Captain!" from a point so close to them that
its owner must have come almost to their hiding-place without the
fugitives either seeing or hearing him.

The three looked at one another, and then, as if the same thought had
come to each of them at the same moment, they with one accord advanced
cautiously and stationed themselves behind a rock by which the man must
pass to reach the edge of the ledge. Here, where they now were,
everything that might transpire would be screened from the others,
unless some of them were following Gomez out along the ledge. But they
must risk that. Crouching low, and as silent as watching cats, they
waited for the man Gomez.

In a moment or two they heard his footsteps on the rocks, and his heavy
breathing. Nearer and nearer he came, and now he was almost on them!
Then with a spring they had him, and he was down among the rocks before
he could utter a sound. Quick as lightning Jake pushed a handful of
sand and sea-weed into the Spaniard's mouth, and clapped his hand over
it to prevent its ejection, Roger and Bevan at the same instant seizing
the man's arms and legs. The eyes of Go