imself stopped also, turned, and looked back whence he had
come.

There had been something very strange in the appearance of the men he
had just seen, something very mysterious in their actions, and he
wondered what it all meant, and what they were going to do. He stood
for a little while thus looking and listening. He could see nothing,
and could hear only the sound of distant talking. What were they doing
on the lonely shore thus at night? Then, following a sudden impulse,
he turned and cut off across the sand hummocks, skirting around
inland, but keeping pretty close to the shore, his object being to spy
upon them, and to watch what they were about from the back of the low
sand hills that fronted the beach.

He had gone along some distance in his circuitous return when he
became aware of the sound of voices that seemed to be drawing closer
to him as he came toward the speakers. He stopped and stood listening,
and instantly, as he stopped, the voices stopped also. He crouched
there silently in the bright, glimmering moonlight, surrounded by the
silent stretches of sand, and the stillness seemed to press upon him
like a heavy hand. Then suddenly the sound of a man's voice began
again, and as Tom listened he could hear some one slowly counting.
"Ninety-one," the voice began, "ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four,
ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one
hundred, one hundred and one"--the slow, monotonous count coming
nearer and nearer; "one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one
hundred and four," and so on in its monotonous reckoning.

Suddenly he saw three heads appear above the sand hill, so close to
him that he crouched down quickly with a keen thrill, close beside the
hummock near which he stood. His first fear was that they might have
seen him in the moonlight; but they had not, and his heart rose again
as the counting voice went steadily on. "One hundred and twenty," it
was saying--"and twenty-one, and twenty-two, and twenty-three, and
twenty-four," and then he who was counting came out from behind the
little sandy rise into the white and open level of shimmering
brightness.

It was the man with the cane whom Tom had seen some time before--the
captain of the party who had landed. He carried his cane under his arm
now, and was holding his lantern close to something that he held in
his hand, and upon which he looked narrowly as he walked with a slow
and measured tread in a pe