drew near the ruins,
but there was no sound except the beating of the waves on the rocks and
the rustling of the sea-breeze through the vines and creepers about
them.

Clay motioned to the men to sit down, and, beckoning to MacWilliams,
directed him to go on ahead and reconnoitre.

"If you fire we will come up," he said. "Get back here as soon as you
can."

"Aren't you going to make sure first that Kirkland is on the other side
of the fort?" MacWilliams whispered.

Clay replied that he was certain Kirkland had already arrived. "He had
a shorter run than ours, and he wired you he was ready to start when we
were, didn't he?" MacWilliams nodded.

"Well, then, he is there. I can count on Kirk."

MacWilliams pulled at his heavy boots and hid them in the bushes, with
his helmet over them to mark the spot. "I feel as though I was going
to rob a bank," he chuckled, as he waved his hand and crept off into
the underbrush.

For the first few moments the men who were left behind sat silent, but
as the minutes wore on, and MacWilliams made no sign, they grew
restless, and shifted their positions, and began to whisper together,
until Clay shook his head at them, and there was silence again until
one of them, in trying not to cough, almost strangled, and the others
tittered and those nearest pummelled him on the back.

Clay pulled out his revolver, and after spinning the cylinder under his
finger-nail, put it back in its holder again, and the men, taking this
as an encouraging promise of immediate action, began to examine their
weapons again for the twentieth time, and there was a chorus of short,
muffled clicks as triggers were drawn back and cautiously lowered and
levers shot into place and caught again.

One of the men farthest down the track raised his arm, and all turned
and half rose as they saw MacWilliams coming toward them on a run,
leaping noiselessly in his stocking feet from tie to tie. He dropped
on his knees between Clay and Langham.

"The guns are there all right," he whispered, panting, "and there are
only three men guarding them. They are all sitting on the beach
smoking. I hustled around the fort and came across the whole outfit in
the second gallery. It looks like a row of coffins, ten coffins and
about twenty little boxes and kegs. I'm sure that means they are
coming for them to-night. They've not tried to hide them nor to cover
them up. All we've got to do is to walk down on the guards and t