“Steamer, Ben?” asked Jack, sure now that there was something in the old fellow’s story.

“Reckon she was, though I did see something white, which gave me a creepy feeling like as if I’d seen a apparition or something similar.  Maybe she had sail on to help her steam.  Some of ’em do.”

“And you saw her for a short time only!”

“Yes, sir, not half a minute nor half that even.  There wasn’t time to say ‘Jack Robinson’ twice, sir, before she was out of sight.”

“Well, if she came in she can get out, and so can we, Ben.  Keep this quiet till I speak to the captain about it.  It will be just as well not to have every one know it, and have it talked about all over the vessel.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if it would, sir,” and as Jack walked away the old sailor continued his own passage up and down the deck.

“There are probably places to hide that we have not seen,” thought the boy, as he took a turn of the deck, and then started to go below, “and we may not be able to see this vessel in the morning.  I shall have a look for her, nevertheless.  If there is to be a bargain made and I don’t see why there should not be, unless we trade directly with lawbreakers and assist them.  That we could not do, of course, but if we hire a pilot we are not supposed to know whether he is honest or not.”

The question was a puzzling one, and Jack had not solved it when he went below, turned in and quickly fell asleep.

In the morning, nothing having been seen of any strange vessel from the deck of the yacht, Jack told Percival quietly what he had heard, and after breakfast they went ashore and set out for a search for the stranger.

“If she is here,” Jack said, “she is one of the smugglers, and will not want to be seen.  If we can find her it may mean that we can get out of our strange prison.”

“How are we going to find her, Jack?  There are probably plenty of hiding places about here that we don’t dream of.”

“I know it, Dick, but we must find them if we want to leave here.  I do not think that Smith will be able to get us out, and if we can do it ourselves, so much the better.”

“Yes, and all the more credit to us, Jack.”

CHAPTER XVII

DISCOVERIES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

The boys landed at the point where they had first gone ashore, well up in the bay, as that would give them less walking, and pushed toward the north, keeping as near to the shore as they could in the hope of being thus better able to see the hidden smuggler in case she was still at the island.

Making their way over rough ground, they at length came to an opening in the rocks which was quite high enough for them to enter, and Jack said in an eager tone: 

“It is possible we may find something here, Dick.  This seems to be a cave, and smugglers and men of that sort make such places convenient.”