Finally, Buckrow crawled into the jungle again and disappeared.  We waited for a quarter of an hour, keeping close watch on the beach, but we saw him no more.

“He made a little beacon with three stones,” explained the captain.  “I ain’t sure just what it means, but Thirkle ain’t the man to leave such work to Buckrow.  You can bet Thirkle will know how to find the gold again without asking Buckrow for the bearings.  There is some deviltry afoot, and my best guess is that the pirates ain’t getting along none too well among themselves with that treasure.

“We’ll have to scout along the beach and pick up their trail and run ’em down carefully.  Anyway, I’m glad they are here, but we’ll have to hustle along now or they’ll be cutting out of this, and if they get the boats into the water, we’ll have to let ’em go without a shot.  That’ll give us a hard job, because we’ll have to take a chance of leaving the gold to get help and having them come back for it while we’re gone.”

We were well satisfied to know that the pirates were on the island and that we had found them before they were aware of our escape from the Kut Sang.  Now we had a good opportunity to stalk them and give them a surprise.

We scrambled down from the burning rocks, and filled our pockets with extra ammunition and biscuits, and each took a small bottle of water.  Our clothes were well dried, and, altogether, we found ourselves ready for battle.

“If we can crawl up on ’em while they are all together and turn loose with our pistols from cover, we’ve got ’em,” said Riggs.  “The three of us ought to lay them out before they know what’s up.”

“We ought to even the numbers before our pistols are empty,” I said.  “Two of them ought to drop at the first volley.”

“It’s no quarter, either, Mr. Trenholm, unless we have one of ’em, so he can’t do any damage, and then we might give him a chance to live so he can hang.  But they’ll have no mercy on us if they get the upper hand.”

“I’d like to take Thirkle back to Manila alive just to get at his history.”

“I’d like to get Thirkle myself, Mr. Trenholm; but it’s Thirkle we’ll have to get first of all, if we can.  He’s more dangerous than all the others, and, as you’re the best shot, keep plugging at him until you get him.  But I’m afraid it ain’t going to be so easy as we figure out.

“One thing is in our favour:  they don’t know we got out of the Kut Sang, and it’s likely they’ve been so busy burying the gold they don’t know the steamer is above water; but if they get a sight of her before we drop on ’em, then we’ll have a pretty pickle on our hands.”

The backbone of the point ran back into the jungle and we found it a hot and hard climb through the tangled vines and thick shrubbery.  After we had reached the other side we crawled out on the beach and made a careful reconnaissance to the north.

We progressed slowly along the rim of sand, where the brush was sparse, allowing us to keep a good lookout ahead.  We went along a few yards at a time, stepping out occasionally to reconnoitre the sand-reaches ahead.  We found that the northern end of the island was higher than we supposed at first, a labyrinth of ravines sloping down to the sea.