head," I called out.

"Do you want to go aground?" asked the Captain.

For answer, I pushed him aside and took the wheel. I had caught the
smallest glimmer, like a night-light, floating on the water.

"Drop the anchor," I called.

The light in shore was clear and near at hand, about one hundred yards
away, and there was the big murmur and commotion of the long breakers
over the dancing shoals. We rolled a good deal, and the Captain moodily
took my suggestion of throwing out three anchors and cradling them;
though, as he said, with the way the northeast was blowing, we should
soon be on dry land. It was true enough. The tide was running out very
fast, and the white sand coming ever nearer to our eyes in the
moonlight; and Samson's light, there, was keeping white and steady. With
the thought of my treasure and the "King" so near by, it was hard to
resist the temptation to plunge in and follow my heart ashore. But I
managed to control the boyish impulse, and presently we were all snug,
and some of us snoring, below decks, rocked in the long swells of the
shoal water that gleamed milkily like an animated moonstone under the
stars--old Sailor curled up at my feet, just like old times.

CHAPTER X

_The Hidden Creek._

I woke just as dawn was waking too, very still and windless; for the
threatening nor'easter had changed its mind, and the world was as quiet
as though there weren't a human being in it. Near by, stretched the long
low coast-line, nothing but level brush, with an occasional thatch-palm
lifting up a shock-head against the quickening sky. Out to sea, the
level plains of lucent water spread like a vast floor, immensely
vacant--not a sail or even a wing to mar the perfect void.

As the light grew, I scanned the shore to see whether I could detect the
entrance of the hidden creek; but, though I swept it up and down again
and again, it continued to justify the "King's" boast. There was no sign
of an opening anywhere. Nothing but a straight line of brush, with
mangroves here and there stepping down in their fantastic way into the
water. And yet we were but a hundred yards from the shore. Certainly
"Blackbeard"--if the haunt had really been his--had known his business;
for an enemy could have sought him all day along this coast and found
no clue to his hiding-place.

But, presently, as my eyes kept on seeking, a figure rose, tall and
black near the water's edge, a little to our left, and shot up a long