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They only knew that they were facing shoreward by the inflow of the tide, but certain that this would prove a tolerably safe guide, they kept boldly on, without fear of straying from the track. For a while they waded; but, as their progress was both slower and more toilsome, they once more betook themselves to swimming.
"They are further out on the lake, Bill," one said. "I am not sure," another answered. "I rather think the sound was further down. Listen again." Again they sat motionless. Harold swam with his eyes fixed upon them. Every face was turned his way and none was looking shoreward. Then, almost at the same instant there was a shout from both boats. The men with torches seemed to lose their balance.
"Caramba! you will not? Take aim, men fire." A jagged flash of flame cleaved the night. It lit the steep bank, flinging a bright glare across the dark waters. In that instant I saw, my face set shoreward, a dozen black figures clustered in a bunch. One ball crashed into the planking close beside my hand, hurling a splinter of wood against my face.
Unable to remain flung up on the beach, pounded ever back toward the beach by the perpetual shoreward rush of the kanaka surf, the up-piled water escaped to the sea by way of the channel and in the form of under-tow along the bottom under the breakers. Even in the channel the waves broke big, but not with the magnificent bigness of terror as to right and left.
From farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who? Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf.
It was a long, low, sandy atoll, with a few cocoanut-palms growing in the centre of it, and with the exception of a vast colony of seabirds that apparently made it their headquarters, the island was devoid of life. The bloodthirsty McGuffey stood at the break of the poop, and as he gazed shoreward he chuckled and rubbed his hands together. "Great, great," he murmured.
As the rays again bent shoreward he saw a long point projecting out into the sea. Beyond the jutting promontory he would be safe. Running a course which would carry him clear of the point by a narrow margin he settled low in his seat and dashed forward. The fog-dimmed light hovered about the point as the Richard plunged boldly into the focus of its dripping beams.
Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress down-stream amazingly rapid.
When the tide rose the waters raged and thundered all around the rock, but when it sank again the still, deep pool remained, unruffled as a mountain tarn and as full of mystery. Over a tumble of lesser rocks that bounded the pool to shoreward the wary might find a path to the Spear Point Caves; but the path was difficult, and there were few who had ever attempted it.
In spite of the suction of the muddy sand he felt its clutch giving way. It loosened a little here, a little there. His body began to move. After a long tug he came out at last with a rush. But he left his high cowpuncher's boots behind. They remained buried out of sight in the sand. He had literally been dragged out of them. Roy felt himself pulled shoreward.
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