ng across the marl ponds to the east
coast."

So it was settled, and, presently, Charlie went along with two of his
best guns and Sailor, in the rowboat, and I saw him no more for a week.
Meanwhile, I kept watch and studied the scenery, and old Tom and I
talked about the strange people who inhabited the interior--those houses
that moved away into the mist as soon as you caught sight of them. Some
day old Tom and I are going to explore the interior, for he is not so
much afraid of ghosts as he was, since we tried them out together.

At the end of the week, the wind was blowing strong from the west and
the tides ran high. About noon we caught sight of triumphant sails
making up the river. It was Charlie back again.

"Got him!" was all he said, as he rowed ashore.

Sailor was with him in the rowboat, but I noticed that he was limping,
going on three legs.

"Yes!" said Charlie. "It's lucky for Tobias he only got Sailor's foot,
or, by the living God, I'd have stood my trial for manslaughter, or
whatever they call it. It'll soon be all right, old man," he said,
taking Sailor's wounded paw in his hand, "soon be all right." Sailor
wagged his tail vigorously, to show that a gunshot through one of his
legs was a mere nothing.

"Yes!" said Charlie, as we sat at lunch in the shack, under the tamarind
tree; "we've got him safe there under decks all right; chained up like
a buoy. If he can get away, I'll believe in the Devil."

"Won't you tell me about it?" I asked.

"Not much to tell; too easy altogether. I waited a couple of days at the
mouth of Goose River. Then I got tired, and left the sponger with the
captain and two or three men, while I went up the river with a couple of
guns and Sailor, and a man to pole the skiff--just for some
duck-shooting, you know. We lay low, for two days, on the marshes, and
then Sailor got sniffing the wind one morning, as if there was something
around he didn't care much for. The day before, we had heard firing a
mile or so inland, and had come upon some duck that some one or other
had shot and hadn't had time to pick up. So, that morning, I let Sailor
lead the way. We had been out about an hour, and were stealing under the
lee of a big mangrove island, after some duck we had sighted a little to
the eastward, when, suddenly, apparently without anything to alarm them,
they rose from the water and came flying in our direction. But evidently
something, or somebody, had startled them. They came