Jack Tier watched every movement with palpable uneasiness.  His apprehensions that Spike would obtain all he wanted, and be off before he could rejoin him, increased at each instant, and he did not scruple to announce an intention to take the boat and go alongside of the Swash at every hazard, rather than be left.

“You do not reflect on what you say, Jack,” answered Harry; “unless, indeed, it be your intention to betray us.  How could you appear in the boat, at this place, without letting it be known that we must be hard by?”

“That don’t follow at all, maty,” answered Jack.  “Suppose I go alongside the brig and own to the captain that I took the boat last night, with the hope of findin’ you, and that failin’ to succeed, I bore up for this port, to look for provisions and water.  Miss Rose he thinks on board at this moment, and in my judgment he would take me at my word, give me a good cursing, and think no more about it.”

“It would never do, Jack,” interposed Rose, instantly.  “It would cause the destruction of Harry, as Spike would not believe you had not found him, without an examination of this house.”

“What are they about with the yawl, Mr. Mulford?” asked Jack, whose eye was never off the vessel for a single moment.  “It’s gettin’ to be so dark that one can hardly see the boat, but it seems as if they’re about to man the yawl.”

“They are, and there goes a lantern into it.  And that is Spike himself coming down the brig’s side this instant.”

“They can only bring a lantern to search this house,” exclaimed Rose.  “Oh!  Harry, you are lost!”

“I rather think the lantern is for the light-house,” answered Mulford, whose coolness, at what was certainly a most trying moment, did not desert him.  “Spike may wish to keep the light burning, for once before, you will remember, he had it kindled after the keeper was removed.  As for his sailing, he would not be apt to sail until the moon rises; and in beating back to the wreck the light may serve to let him know the bearings and position of the reef.”

“There they come,” whispered Rose, half breathless with alarm.  “The boat has left the brig, and is coming directly hither!”

All this was true enough.  The yawl had shoved off, and with two men to row it, was pulling for the wharf in front of the house, and among the timbers of which lay the boat, pretty well concealed beneath a sort of bridge.  Mulford would not retreat, though he looked to the fastenings of the door as a means of increasing his chances of defence.  In the stern-sheets of the boat sat two men, though it was not easy to ascertain who they were by the fading light.  One was known to be Spike, however, and the other, it was conjectured, must be Don Juan Montefalderon, from the circumstance of his being in the place of honour.  Three minutes solved this question, the boat reaching the wharf by that time.  It was instantly secured, and all four of the men left it.  Spike