Presently from behind the hill there came, for the third time, the sharp
rapping sound of the mallet driving still another peg, and then after a
while the two pirates emerged from behind the sloping whiteness into the
space of moonlight again.

They came direct to where the chest lay, and the white man and the black
man lifting it once more, they walked away across the level of open
sand, and so on behind the edge of the hill and out of Tom's sight.


III

Tom Chist could no longer see what the pirates were doing, neither did
he dare to cross over the open space of sand that now lay between
them and him. He lay there speculating as to what they were about, and
meantime the storm cloud was rising higher and higher above the horizon,
with louder and louder mutterings of thunder following each dull flash
from out the cloudy, cavernous depths. In the silence he could hear
an occasional click as of some iron implement, and he opined that the
pirates were burying the chest, though just where they were at work he
could neither see nor tell.

Still he lay there watching and listening, and by and by a puff of warm
air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder thunder leaped
from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every minute was coming
nearer and nearer. Still Tom Chist lay watching.

Suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the three figures reappeared from behind
the sand hill, the pirate captain leading the way, and the negro and
white man following close behind him. They had gone about halfway across