-five paces from him. They had again set down the chest, upon
which the white man with the long queue and the gold earrings had seated
to rest himself, the negro standing close beside him. The moon shone
as bright as day and full upon his face. It was looking directly at Tom
Chist, every line as keen cut with white lights and black shadows as
though it had been carved in ivory and jet. He sat perfectly motionless,
and Tom drew back with a start, almost thinking he had been discovered.
He lay silent, his heart beating heavily in his throat; but there was
no alarm, and presently he heard the counting begin again, and when he
looked once more he saw they were going away straight across the little
open. A soft, sliding hillock of sand lay directly in front of them.
They did not turn aside, but went straight over it, the leader helping
himself up the sandy slope with his cane, still counting and still
keeping his eyes fixed upon that which he held in his hand. Then they
disappeared again behind the white crest on the other side.

So Tom followed them cautiously until they had gone almost half a mile
inland. When next he saw them clearly it was from a little sandy rise
which looked down like the crest of a bowl upon the floor of sand
below. Upon this smooth, white floor the moon beat with almost dazzling
brightness.

The white man who had helped to carry the chest was now kneeling, busied
at some work, though what it was Tom at first could not see. He was
whittling the point of a stick into a long wooden peg, and when, by and
by, he had finished what he was about, he arose and stepped to where he
who seemed to be the captain had stuck his cane upright into the ground
as though to mark some particular spot. He drew the cane out of the
sand, thrusting the stick down in its stead. Then he drove the long
peg down with a wooden mallet which the negro handed to him. The sharp
rapping of the mallet upon the top of the peg sounded loud the perfect
stillness, and Tom lay watching and wondering what it all meant. The
man, with quick-repeated blows, drove the peg farther and farther
down into the sand until it showed only two or three inches above the
surface. As he finished his work there was another faint flash of light,
and by and by another smothered rumble of thunder, and Tom, as he looked
out toward the westward, saw the silver rim of the round and sharply
outlined thundercloud rising slowly up into the sky and pushing the
other