So it was settled, and, presently, Charlie went along with two of his best guns and Sailor, in the rowboat, and I saw him no more for a week.  Meanwhile, I kept watch and studied the scenery, and old Tom and I talked about the strange people who inhabited the interior—­those houses that moved away into the mist as soon as you caught sight of them.  Some day old Tom and I are going to explore the interior, for he is not so much afraid of ghosts as he was, since we tried them out together.

At the end of the week, the wind was blowing strong from the west and the tides ran high.  About noon we caught sight of triumphant sails making up the river.  It was Charlie back again.

“Got him!” was all he said, as he rowed ashore.

Sailor was with him in the rowboat, but I noticed that he was limping, going on three legs.

“Yes!” said Charlie.  “It’s lucky for Tobias he only got Sailor’s foot, or, by the living God, I’d have stood my trial for manslaughter, or whatever they call it.  It’ll soon be all right, old man,” he said, taking Sailor’s wounded paw in his hand, “soon be all right.”  Sailor wagged his tail vigorously, to show that a gunshot through one of his legs was a mere nothing.

“Yes!” said Charlie, as we sat at lunch in the shack, under the tamarind tree; “we’ve got him safe there under decks all right; chained up like a buoy.  If he can get away, I’ll believe in the Devil.”

“Won’t you tell me about it?” I asked.

“Not much to tell; too easy altogether.  I waited a couple of days at the mouth of Goose River.  Then I got tired, and left the sponger with the captain and two or three men, while I went up the river with a couple of guns and Sailor, and a man to pole the skiff—­just for some duck-shooting, you know.  We lay low, for two days, on the marshes, and then Sailor got sniffing the wind one morning, as if there was something around he didn’t care much for.  The day before, we had heard firing a mile or so inland, and had come upon some duck that some one or other had shot and hadn’t had time to pick up.  So, that morning, I let Sailor lead the way.  We had been out about an hour, and were stealing under the lee of a big mangrove island, after some duck we had sighted a little to the eastward, when, suddenly, apparently without anything to alarm them, they rose from the water and came flying in our direction.  But evidently something, or somebody, had startled them.  They came right by me.  It was hard luck not to be able to take a shot at them.  I could have got a dozen of them at least.”

“Probably more,” I suggested.

“I really believe I could,” agreed Charlie, in entire innocence.  “Well, as I have said, it was hard luck; but Sailor seemed to have something on his mind, beside duck.  As we poled along silently in the direction from which the duck had risen, he grew more and more excited, and, at last, as we neared a certain mangrove copse to which all the time he had been pointing, he barked two or three times, and, I let him go.  Poor old fellow!”