eyes.

"Oh, yer know well enough; that letter yer give me at supper time."

"Captain, I'll give you my davy I don't know what you're talking
about," returned the beachcomber.

"What!" roared the captain: rising to his feet and advancing
threateningly. "Yer mean ter tell me, yer rapscallion, that yer don't
recall landin' at Topsail Island earlier ter-night and givin' me a note
which says ter come urgent and immediate ter see young Rob Blake here?"

"Why, captain," calmly returned Hank, with an indulgent grin, "I really
think you must be gettin' childish in your old age. You must be seeing
things. I hope you ain't drinking."

"You--you scoundrel, you!" roared the old captain, almost beside
himself with rage, and dancing with clenched fists toward Hank.

The beach-comber's filthy hand slipped into his rags in a minute, and
the next instant he was squatting back on his haunches in the corner of
the hut, like a wildcat about to spring. In his hand there glistened,
in the yellow rays of the lamp, a blued-steel revolver.

"Don't get angry, captain. It's bad for the digestion," grinned the
castaway. "Now," he went on, "I'm going to tell you flat that if you
say I came to your island to-night, you're dreaming. It must have been
some one else.

"Come on, boys," directed the captain, with an angry shrug. "There's no
use wastin' time on the critter. I'm inclined ter think now that
there's somethin' more than ordinary in the wind," he added, as they
left the hut, with the half-idiotic chuckles of its occupant ringing in
their ears.

CHAPTER VII

SOME STRANGE DOINGS

It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more
reached Hampton. The main street had been deserted long since, and
every one in the village had returned to rest.

The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the
Main Street for their respective homes. Rob remained up, pondering
over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any
solution of them. He was just about to extinguish his light when he
was startled by a loud:

"His--s--st!"

The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto
the garden.

He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

"It's me, the captain, Rob," rejoined the well-known voice. "I
wouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."

"What's the trouble, captain?"