She cast down her eyes at this, and looked for all the world the taking
little coquette that she was. Her odd speech told me something, enough
at least to put a hundred questions into my head and as many useless
answers. The Governor was away. The island alternately hated and feared
him. The sleep-time, whatever it was, might be looked for in ten days'
time. We must be away and on board the ship by then or something
dreadful would happen to us. Ruth Bellenden's unhappiness was known
even to these little girls, and they surmised, as the others had
surmised, that we were on shore to help her. For the rest, the men on
Ken's Island, I imagined, would hunt us night and day until we were
taken. Nor was I mistaken in that. We'd scarcely finished our meal when
there was the sound of a gunshot far down in the valley, and, old
Clair-de-Lune jumping up at the report, we were all on our feet in an
instant to speak of the danger.

"Halloa, popguns," cries Peter Bligh, in his Irish way; "what for now
would any man be firing popguns at this time of the morning?"

"It's to ask after your health, Peter," said I, when we'd listened
awhile, "what else should a man be firing after, unless he takes you
for a rabbit? Will you run down and thank him kindly?"

He hitched up his breeches and pulled out his briar-pipe.

"If this is track-running, take down my number. I'm through with it,
gentlemen, being not so young as I was."

A gunshot, fired out at sea, cut short his talk. Old Clair-de-Lune,
nipping up the ladder, bade us follow him, while to the girls he cried,
"_Allez-vous en!_" All our quiet talk and content were gone in an
instant. I never answered little Dolly Venn when he asked me, "Do you
think there's danger, sir?" but, running up the hill after the
Frenchman, I helped him to carry the ladder we'd dragged out of the
pit, for I knew he'd need of it.

"What is it, Clair-de-Lune? Why are they firing?" I asked him, as he
ran.

"Governor home," was his answer--"Governor home. Great danger,
_capitaine_."

CHAPTER X

WE ARE SURELY CAGED ON KEN'S ISLAND

We ran up the hill, I say, as men who raced for their lives. The little
girls, snatching up their bags and baskets, exchanged a quick word with
Clair-de-Lune and then hurried off towards the bungalow. Our own path
lay over difficult rocks and steep slopes and chasms fearful to see. Of
these our leader made nothing, and we went on, up and up, until at last
the road carried