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Before he left, however, he arranged with Kenna that the latter should bring the required articles one by one especially two breakers of water to the foot of Little Nobby's and hide them in the scrub at the spot agreed upon.
At this time Ruth was looking forward to the day of her marriage with Trenfield, who, through my father's influence with the Governor, was expecting to be pardoned. But now I am forging ahead too fast, and must go back to where we boys and Walter Trenfield were lying on the grassy bluff overlooking Little Nobby's awaiting the return of my brother Harry.
'As you please, sir, the young man answered, his sun-tanned face lighting up with pleasure; 'the wind is westerly, and the water very clear; so, if there are any sharks about we can easily see them. So presently down we trooped, and, clambering over the jagged pinnacles of rock, soon reached the seaward face of Little Nobby's.
They stayed on the headland for nearly an hour, talking to Tom King and the look-out man, and then came home, feeling satisfied that if the three men had succeeded in launching the boat safely, they had passed Bar Harbour about eleven o'clock and would reach Nobby's at or before midnight.
'Let me come with you, he said, 'and bid Tom good-bye. 'No, answered Kenna, roughly, 'neither you nor I nor any wan else must go near Nobby's to-night; matthers are goin' well enough, an' no folly of yours shall bring desthruction upon them. As it is, the constables suspect me, and are now watching my house.
The place selected for the landing of the boat was an excellent one; for on one side of Little Nobby's was a little, narrow bay running in between high clifis of black trap rock, which broke the force of the ocean swell entirely. Then, too, the place was very lonely and seldom visited, for the main road lay nearly two miles back beyond the clifis.
Both Walter and Ruth knew that unless the night was very clear there was no chance of even the lookout man on the pilot station seeing a small boat passing along to the southward; but nevertheless they went up to the pilot station about ten o'clock, when they thought that Tom May and his companions would be passing Bar Harbour on their way to Little Nobby's.
On the fourth night after his visit to Kenna's house, Tom May again came through the bush, and went to Little Nobby's, for when Ruth's father went to the hiding-place in the morning with a breaker of water and a large bundle of dried fish, he found that the bag and the sail-cloth were gone, and on a small piece of white driftwood which lay on the ground these words were written in charcoal:
Soon after breakfast next morning, Patrick Kenna, under pretence of speaking to my mother about a strayed heifer of ours, came into the kitchen, and told Ruth that all was well; he had been to Little Nobby's at daylight and found that everything was gone and the boat was nowhere to be discerned.
'Sunday, Midnight? By this Kenna knew that the three men meant to come for the provisions and water at the time mentioned. It was then Friday, and he had much to do to get all in readiness; for Little Nobby's was quite six miles distant from his house, and he could only make his journeys to and fro with great secrecy, for the constables were still searching the coastal region for May.
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