a
light from within. It was otherwise dark and forbidding.

Aunt Amanda found Ketch at her mule's head again. She leaned forward and
said to him:

"Is that High Dudgeon?"

"No, ma'am. That's Low Dudgeon."

"Low Dudgeon? What do you mean by Low Dudgeon?"

Ketch looked at the tower and shuddered. "I don't like to talk about it,
ma'am. I don't like the place. It's the place where we used to live long
ago, before we built High Dudgeon. There's none of us wants to live
there now. We haven't lived there since--" Ketch paused, and shuddered
again, and evidently decided not to go on.

"There's a light up there," said Aunt Amanda. "Does anybody live there?"

"No, ma'am," said Ketch. "Nobody _lives_ there."

"But there's a light," said Aunt Amanda. "Surely there must be somebody
there."

"There is, ma'am; there is; thirteen of 'em."

"Thirteen what?"

But Ketch only shuddered again, and would say no more.

Aunt Amanda noticed that instead of going straight onward past the door
of Low Dudgeon, the pirates led the file in a wide course away from it,
along the edge of the clearing, as if to avoid coming near to it; and
when the procession had thus skirted the clearing and entered the forest
again on the other side, leaving the low tower behind, a sigh, as if of
relief, went up from Ketch and all the other pirates; except, however,
from Captain Lingo himself, who appeared to be wholly indifferent.

"How much further?" said Aunt Amanda to Ketch.

"About a mile, ma'am," said he.

The last mile of their journey was a long mile, and it was traversed in
perfect darkness. The moon had not yet risen. Not a word was spoken, and
there was no sound except the pad of the mules' feet and the breaking of
twigs and branches as the travellers pushed their way through. The
prisoners were in a state of greater nervousness and anxiety than
before, and as they neared the place where their lives were to be
disposed of in one way or another, their sense of uncertainty became
almost unbearable. When it seemed that they must be close to the fateful
place, the procession suddenly halted, and at the same instant the
screech of a parrot startled the silence and made each of the prisoners
jump.

"It's only the captain," said Ketch. "It's a signal."

Immediately, as if in response, there came from a distance in advance
the note of a cuckoo, three times repeated. The procession moved
forward.

A moment or two later, the whole company cam