spoken to him followed him threateningly for some little distance, as
though to see that he had gone away as he was bidden to do. But
presently he stopped, and Tom hurried on alone, until the boat and the
crew and all were dropped away behind and lost in the moonlight night.
Then he himself 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 towards 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
to him--"one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and