Therefore I could have left the island
only by going over the tracks of the junk landing. This he proceeded to
verify by wading out over them himself, lighting matches as he came
along.
When he arrived at the point where I had first lain, I knew, by the
matches he burned and the time he took, that he had discovered the marks
left by my body. These he followed straight to the water and into it,
but in three feet of water he could no longer see them. On the other
hand, as the tide was still falling, he could easily make out the
impression made by the junk's bow, and could have likewise made out the
impression of any other boat if it had landed at that particular spot.
But there was no such mark; and I knew that he was absolutely convinced
that I was hiding somewhere in the mud.
But to hunt on a dark night for a boy in a sea of mud would be like
hunting for a needle in a haystack, and he did not attempt it. Instead
he went back to the beach and prowled around for some time. I was hoping
he would give me up and go, for by this time I was suffering severely
from the cold. At last he waded out to his skiff and rowed away. What if
this departure of Yellow Handkerchief's were a sham? What if he had done
it merely to entice me ashore?
The more I thought of it the more certain I became that he had made a
little too much noise with his oars as he rowed away.
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