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game as this sharpens a man’s wits. We shall see what we shall see.”

Jacob slipped away by himself and the Old One followed his men.

All that morning, unseen and unsuspected, Jacob sat behind a rock within earshot of the ship. The palms shielded him and shaded him and he got himself into such a corner that no one could approach him from behind or see him without being seen. And all that morning he neither heard nor saw aught worthy of mark until about noon a voice in the ship cried out so that Jacob could plainly understand the words, ‘‘One should watch from land. Now a man on the hilltop could serve us well.”

To which a second voice replied, “Go thou up, Will, go thou up! We are of no mind to stir.”

There came the sound of steps on a plank, then a rattle of pebbles and a rustle of leaves; and Jacob rose quickly and followed at a safe distance a man who passed his corner on the way up the acclivity.

Reaching the summit of the hill, where he was safely out of sight from the ship, the fellow — and it was indeed Will Canty — searched the sea from horizon to horizon; but Jacob, hunting deliberately as was his manner, found a seat a great way off, yet so situated among the trees that he could watch without being seen. For an hour he sat thus in a niche in the rocks below and watched Will on the flat ledge above; then he saw him start up of a sudden and look around him very carefully and cautiously, and whip his shirt off his back and wave it in the air.

For a good half-hour Will waved the shirt, stopping now and then to rest; but it seemed that nothing came