It was well toward morning when several of the crew, according
to orders, returned and joined the captain, and the latter
went aboard the "Nancy" and sailed her back to where she had
previously anchored.
One man was left in charge of the yacht, and the balance, with
the captain, rowed ashore and proceeded afoot to the
rendezvous, and at length daylight came.
The search had proved a failure, and when it was well on in
the morning all hands were assembled at the rendezvous.
A majority of the men were sent aboard the "Nancy," while the
master and some of his most reliable confederates remained
ashore.
The men had made a thorough search, and all hands were still
of the opinion that the detective, or whoever it was that had
been tracking them, still remained secreted somewhere on the
island.
One of the men, a shrewd fellow, offered several singular
suggestions. He had accurately measured the tracks of the man
who had laid out two members of the crew, and he had found
duplicate foot imprints down around the rendezvous.
A more dazed and bewildered set of men were never engaged in
an illegal traffic.
Meantime the daring detective was lying low right in their
very midst.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Spencer Vance had not been idle while in the subterranean
warehouse; but, with his masked lantern, he had gone about,
and, in a regular business-like manner, had made an inventory
of the merchandise scattered about; and he had also copied all
the shipping-marks and also all the hieroglyphic brush signs.
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