.
He was walking the deck, groaning at the folly of the expedition, when
a strange appearance on the southern horn of the bay made him come to a
sudden halt. There was a furnace blazing in the bowels of the mountain!
Blunt rubbed his eyes and stared. He looked at the man at the helm. "Do
you see anything yonder, Jem?"

Jem--a Sydney man, who had never been round that coast before--briefly
remarked, "Lighthouse."

Blunt stumped into the cabin and got out his charts. No lighthouse was
laid down there, only a mark like an anchor, and a note, "Remarkable
Hole at this Point." A remarkable hole indeed; a remarkable "lime kiln"
would have been more to the purpose!

Blunt called up his mate, William Staples, a fellow whom Sarah Purfoy's
gold had bought body and soul. William Staples looked at the waxing and
waning glow for a while, and then said, in tones trembling with greed,
"It's a fire. Lie to, and lower away the jolly-boat. Old man, that's our
bird for a thousand pounds!"

The Pretty Mary shortened sail, and Blunt and Staples got into the
jolly-boat.

"Goin' a-hoysterin', sir?" said one of the crew, with a grin, as Blunt
threw a bundle into the stern-sheets.

Staples thrust his tongue into his cheek. The object of the voyage was
now pretty well understood among the carefully picked crew. Blunt had
not chosen men who were likely to betray him, though, for that
matter, Rex had suggested a precaution which rendered betrayal almost
impossible.

"What's in the bundle, old man?" asked Will Staples, after they had got
clear of the ship.

"Clothes," returned Blunt. "We can't bring him off, if it is him, in his
canaries. He puts on these duds, d'ye see, sinks Her Majesty's livery,
and comes aboard, a 'shipwrecked mariner'."

"That's well thought of. Whose notion's that? The Madam's, I'll be
bound."

"Ay."

"She's a knowing one."

And the sinister laughter of the pair floated across the violet water.

"Go easy, man," said Blunt, as they neared the shore. "They're all awake
at Eaglehawk; and if those cursed dogs give tongue there'll be a boat
out in a twinkling. It's lucky the wind's off shore."

Staples lay on his oar and listened. The night was moonless, and the
ship had already disappeared from view. They were approaching the
promontory from the south-east, and this isthmus of the guarded Neck was
hidden by the outlying cliff. In the south-western angle of this cliff,
about midway between the summit and the sea