he plaited queue and the earrings, whom Tom had seen
lifting the chest out of the boat. Now they were carrying the heavy box
between them, laboring through the sand with shuffling tread as they
bore it onward. As he who was counting pronounced the word "thirty,"
the two men set the chest down on the sand with a grunt, the white
man panting and blowing and wiping his sleeve across his forehead. And
immediately he who counted took out a slip of paper and marked something
down upon it. They stood there for a long time, during which Tom lay
behind the sand hummock watching them, and for a while the silence was
uninterrupted. In the perfect stillness Tom could hear the washing of
the little waves beating upon the distant beach, and once the far-away
sound of a laugh from one of those who stood by the ship's boat.

One, two, three minutes passed, and then the men picked up the chest
and started on again; and then again the other man began his counting.
"Thirty and one, and thirty and two, and thirty and three, and thirty
and four"--he walked straight across the level open, still looking
intently at that which he held in his hand--"and thirty and five,
and thirty and six, and thirty and seven," and so on, until the three
figures disappeared in the little hollow between the two sand hills on
the opposite side of the open, and still Tom could hear the sound of the
counting voice in the distance.

Just as they disappeared behind the hill there was a sudden faint flash
of light; and by and by, as Tom lay still listening to the counting,
he heard, after a long interval, a far-away muffled rumble of distant
thunder. He waited for a while, and then arose and stepped to the top
of the sand hummock behind which he had been lying. He looked all about
him, but there was no one else to be seen. Then he stepped down from the
hummock and followed in the direction which the pirate captain and the
two men carrying the chest had gone. He crept along cautiously, stopping
now and then to make sure that he still heard the counting voice, and
when it ceased he lay down upon the sand and waited until it began
again.

Presently, so following the pirates, he saw the three figures again in
the distance, and, skirting around back of a hill of sand covered with
coarse sedge grass, he came to where he overlooked a little open level
space gleaming white in the moonlight.

The three had been crossing the level of sand, and were now not more
than twenty