There was something in the smile which accompanied the last words which
made Copplestone uneasy. But the prospect of regaining their liberty was
too good--he kept his own counsel. And half-an-hour later, he, Audrey and
Vickers, stood on deck, looking down on a boat alongside, in which were
two or three of the crew and a man holding a lanthorn. In front was the
dark sea, and ahead a darker mass which they took to be land.

"You won't tell us what this place is?" said Vickers as he was about to
follow the others into the boat. "It's on the mainland, of course?"

"The morning light, my good sir, will show you everything," replied
Andrius. "Be content that I have kept my promise--you have come off
luckily," he added with a significant look.

Vickers felt a strange sense of alarm as the boat left the yacht. He
noticed two or three suspicious circumstances. As soon as they got away,
he saw that all the yacht's lights had been or were being darkened or
entirely obscured; at a dozen boat lengths they could see her no more.
Then a boat, swiftly pulled, passed them in the darkness, evidently
coming from the shore to which they were being taken: it, too, carried no
light. Nor were there any lights on the shore itself; all there was in
utter blackness. They were on the shingle within a quarter of an hour;
within a minute or two the yachtsmen had helped all three on to the
beach, had carried up certain boxes and packages which had been placed in
the boat, had set down the lighted lanthorn, jumped into the boat again
and vanished in the darkness. And in the silence, broken only by the drip
of water from the retreating oars, and by the scarcely-noticed ripple of
the waves, Audrey voiced exactly what her two companions felt.

"Andrius has kept his word--and cheated us! We're stranded!"

From somewhere out of the darkness came a groan--deep and heartfelt, as
if in entire agreement with Audrey's declaration. That it proceeded from
a human being was evident enough, and Vickers hastily snatched up the
lanthorn and strode in the direction from which it came. And there,
seated on the shingle, his whole attitude one of utter dejection and
misery, the three castaways found a sharer of their sorrows--Peter
Chatfield!

CHAPTER XXI

MAROONED

To each of these three young people this was the most surprising moment
which life had yet afforded. It was an astonishing thing to find a fellow
mortal there at all, but to find that mort