He landed them, and seemed to be explaining things. Floyd caught glimpses of him waving his arm about almost as though he were pointing out the view.
Then with two of them for oarsmen he came back.
Floyd, as Schumer came on deck, felt sick at heart. He hated the crime, and he hated the sight of the criminal, but he hated even more the idea of death, and he knew that the man now crouched on the deck was surely going to die.
Schumer, as he came on deck, seemed Fate itself--calm, cold, passionless Fate. The judge, the hangman, and the rope all in one.
The Kanakas seemed to guess it; the very brightness of the day seemed grown paler. Floyd walked to the bulwark rail and looked over at the boat where the two rowers were seated looking up at the vessel. His lips were dry. He could do nothing; whatever was going to happen was deserved, but it was horrible.
He heard Schumer giving his orders for signal halyard line and a block. The _Southern Cross_ carried a brass cannonade for saluting purposes, and now he heard Schumer giving orders for it to be loaded.
I have said that the _Southern Cross_ was a topsail schooner, and at this moment the crowd of laborers away out at the fishing ground had their attention drawn by the movement going on upon the rigging of the foremast; men were swarming up, and a fellow was out on the yard--he looked at that distance like a fly against the blue. He came down, as did the others, and he had scarcely reached the deck when a white jet of smoke shot like a plume from the bow of the _Southern Cross_, and the noise of a gun came on the wind.
Something black and struggling, and just like a spider running up a thread, went from the deck of the _Southern Cross_ to the yardarm, touched it, and then sank some half dozen feet, and swung dangling against the sky. It was the murderer.
During it all Floyd had kept his eyes turned away. When the men had come running aft with the halyard line they had knocked against him, making him shift his position, and now, with the dead man swinging aloft, he walked over to the weather side, seemingly an impassive figure, with his rifle under his arm keeping guard.
As he stood looking over the water to the camping place he saw Isbel. She had come out on the sands and she was standing with her hand shading her eyes. She must have been a witness of the whole tragedy, and she stood, motionless as a figure carved from stone--for a moment. Then she turned, and just as though something were in pursuit of her, she ran, making for the grove, into which she disappeared.