CHAPTER XXXII
THE SENTRY
Her eyes had not deceived her. Next morning the chest was gone. While the sailors were sleeping so heavily, those shadows had taken the treasure away.
Yes, it was surely gone, for as she advanced towards the sentry, after her first chill of disappointment and fear, she could see the object on which he sat. It was not shaped like the chest—it was round and black—a driftwood log!
How could they have done it? Old Joe was nobody's fool. He was at his post even now, not pacing up and down in military fashion, but still sitting bolt upright and gazing straight ahead, watchful and alert as a faithful sentry should be. Had they bodies of flesh and blood, those shadows she had seen steal across the cape, or phantom forms as intangible as the morning mist now stealing away in the dawn, with hands that could work evil more real and terrible than mortal rogue.
They must have been ghosts, the vengeful spirits of the old pirates themselves. She had never believed in such things. But could human hands have whisked away a ton of gold in an iron chest and placed there a driftwood log, while he was still standing guard? No, no—there were no such things. But how could they have fooled him— There were five!
336
