is breath was coming in gasps that hurt
him like a knife between his ribs, and his legs were so weak he could
hardly depend on them. He had run nearly two miles, up hill and down, in
heavy clothes drenched with rain, and carrying a dozen pounds of gold
besides the flintlock fowling-piece which he still clutched in his left
hand. Somewhere behind him he had dropped the box, found amid the
treasure, but he was far too tired to look for it. More dead than alive
he crawled, at last, up to the door of the cabin and staggered in when
Tom opened to his knock.

While he gasped out his story, the older brother looked more closely to
the barring of the window-shutters and put fresh powder in the
priming-pans of the guns.

Ten minutes after Jeremy, his father appeared, wet to the skin and with
a grim look around his bearded jaws. He, too, was spent with running,
but he would have gone out again at once when he heard that Bob was
still missing if the boys had not dissuaded him. Jeremy was sure that
if Bob had escaped he would soon reach the cabin, for he had the lay of
the island well in mind now.

And so, while Tom kept watch, they lay down with their clothes on before
the fire.

CHAPTER XXX

The gray November morning dawned damp and cold. In the sheer exhaustion
that followed on their adventure of the night before, Jeremy and his
father slept heavily till close to nine o'clock, when Tom wakened them.
His face was haggard with watching, and he looked so worried that they
had no need to ask him if Bob had come in.

It was a gloomy party that sat down to the morning meal. The youngest
could eat nothing for thinking of his chum's fate. While his father
still spoke hopefully of the possibility that the boy might have found a
hiding place which he dared not leave, Jeremy could only remember the
frightful, scarred visage of Pharaoh Daggs looming in the torchlight. He
knew that Bob would find little mercy behind that cruel face, and he
could not throw off the conviction that the lad had fallen into the
clutches of the pirates.

All day, standing at the loopholes, they waited for some sign either of
Bob's return, or, what seemed more probable, an attack by the buccaneer
crew. But as the hours passed no moving form broke the dark line of
trees above them on the slope.

At length the dusk fell, and they gave up hope of seeing the boy again,
though on the other score their vigilance was redoubled. The night went
by, howeve