CHAPTER XVII
STOLEN!
ALL three hastened out on to the veranda.
"Hello-o-o!" Chester exclaimed delightedly, looking down into the bay.
"A warship!" cried the girl.
"British gunboat, as I live!" Chester declared. "See, they're lowering a boat."
Keith heard, but he could not see the vessel. He was holding on to the rail of the veranda, while his fever-racked body shook. Everything beyond the compound looked blurred. Ill though he was, a sudden fear gripped him.
"She—she isn't by any chance an American boat?" he asked.
"She's as British as I am," the planter replied; and the man from the Four Winds seemed to gather a certain amount of comfort from the assurance. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and squared his shoulders, as though to throw off the ague by sheer force. He knew that the place where he ought to be was bed, but, trusting that the attack would pass off as quickly as it had come, he joined the others and walked down to the beach.
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