h were the key to unlock No. 3 cache. To escape--or, at
any rate, delay--detection, I must land lower down, and preferably at
some point where I could pull up the boat and hide it.

With this in my mind, scanning the woods on the north bank for an
opening, I drifted around the bend, and with a shock of surprise
found myself in full view of the end of the creek. Worse than this,
I was bearing straight for the _Espriella's_ dinghy, which lay just
above water on the foreshore, with her painter carried out to a tree
above the bank. Worst of all, some one at that instant stepped back
from the bank and under the shadow of the tree, as if to await me
there. . . . Mr. Rogers, or the Captain? . . . Mr. Rogers certainly;
for I remembered that the Captain wore white duck trousers, and, by
my glimpse of him, this man's clothes were dark. His height and
walk, too! Yes; no doubt of it, he was Mr. Rogers.

I stood--a culprit caught red-handed--and let the boat drift me down
upon retributive justice. A while ago I had been mentally composing
a number of effective retorts upon Captain Branscome for his
tyrannical behaviour. Now, of a sudden, all this eloquence deserted
me: I felt it leaking away and knew myself for a law-breaker.
One lingering hope remained--that the Captain had pushed ahead into
the woods, and that, as yet, Mr. Jack Rogers (whose good nature I
might almost count upon) had alone detected me and would pack me home
to the ship with nothing worse than a flea in my ear.

His silence encouraged this hope. Half a minute passed and still he
forbore to lift his voice and summon me. He stood, deep in the
shadow, his face screened by the boughs, and made no motion to
advance to the bank.

Then suddenly--at, maybe, two hundred yards' distance--I saw him take
another pace backwards and slip away among the trees.

"Good man!" thought I, and blessed him (after my first start of
astonishment). "He has pretended not to see me."

At any rate he had given me a pretty good hint to make myself scarce
unless I wished to incur Captain Branscome's wrath. I slipped my
paddle forward into a rowlock, picked up the other, and, dropping
upon the thwart, jerked the cockboat right-about-face to head her
back for the schooner.

But after a stroke or two I easied and let her drift back
stern-foremost while I sat considering. Mr. Rogers had behaved like
a trump; yet it seemed mean to deceive the old man; and, moreover, it
amounted