Spike himself might have had other misgivings, and believed that he had seen the living form of his intended victim, but for the extraordinary and ghost-like echo of his last discharge.  There was nothing visible, or intelligible, from which that fire could have come, and he was perfectly bewildered by the whole occurrence.  An intention to round-to, as soon as through the passage, down boat and land, which had been promptly conceived when he found that his first aim had failed, was as suddenly abandoned, and he gave the command to “board fore-tack;” immediately after, his call was to “pack on the brig,” and not without a little tremour in his voice, as soon as he perceived that the figure had vanished.  The crew was not slow to obey these orders, and in ten minutes, the Swash was a mile from the light, standing to the northward and eastward, under a press of canvas, and with a freshening breeze.

To return to the islets.  Harry, from the first, had seen that everything depended on his remaining motionless.  As the people of the brig were partly in shadow, he could not, and did not, fully understand how completely he was himself exposed, in consequence of the brightness of all around him, and he had at first hoped to be mistaken for some accidental resemblance to a man.  His nerves were well tried by the use of the fowling-piece, but they proved equal to the necessities of the occasion.  But, when an answering report came from the rear, or from the opposite side of the islet, he darted round the tower, as much taken by surprise, and overcome by wonder, as any one else who heard it.  It was this rapid movement which caused his flight to be unnoticed, all the men of the brig dodging below their own bulwarks at that precise instant.

As the light-house was now between the mate and the brig, he had no longer any motive for trying to conceal himself.  His first thought was of Rose, and, strange as it may seem, for some little time he fancied that she had found a musket in the dwelling, and discharged it, in order to aid his escape.  The events had passed so swiftly, that there was no time for the cool consideration of anything, and it is not surprising that some extravagances mingled with the first surmises of all these.

On reaching the door of the house, therefore, Harry was by no means surprised at seeing Rose standing in it, gazing at the swiftly receding brigantine.  He even looked for the musket, expecting to see it lying at her feet, or leaning against the wall of the building.  Rose, however, was entirely unarmed, and as dependent on him for support, as when he had parted from her, an hour or two before.

“Where did you find that musket, Rose, and what have you done with it?” inquired Harry, as soon as he had looked in every place he thought likely to hold such an implement.

“Musket, Harry!  I have had no musket, though the report of fire-arms, near by, awoke me from a sweet sleep.”