e white feather. But the thought that that once
I did not act as a brave man would have done has always troubled me."

The next day, as the sea went down, and the recruits recovered from the
effects of the confinement and sickness, they again began to talk among
themselves. The fact that all the other vessels of the fleet were out of
sight naturally encouraged them. Jack observed, however, that the call
to parade on deck was answered with more quickness than before, and the
exercises were gone through with a painstaking steadiness greater than
had been shown since the embarkation. When the men were dismissed from
parade Jack remarked this to the sergeant.

"Ay, ay, lad, I noticed it too," the sergeant said, shaking his head,
"and in my opinion it's a bad sign. They want to throw the officers
off their guard. It's a pity you have been seen talking so much to me,
because, of course, they won't say anything when you are listening; but
one or two of the men who came into the regiment with me have dropped
a word as they happened to pass this morning that they wanted to have
a word if they could get one without being noticed, so I hope to hear a
little more tonight."

That evening, before going below, Jack had an hour's talk with Sergeant
Edwards.

"It's just as I thought," the latter said, "they've got an idea of
seizing the ship. The men I spoke of managed to get a few words with me
this evening. They don't know anything about piracy. All they have heard
is that there is a proposal to seize the ship and to carry her into
one of the northern ports of Spain, where the men will land and give up
their arms to the Spanish authorities, and then either disperse and make
their way home by twos and threes as best they can, or they will take
service with the King of Spain, who, they think, will pay them a deal
better than the English government.

"A part of the crew are in the scheme. These, the men tell me, do not
intend to land, but only tell the others that they shall sail away.
That's about what I thought would be. The greater part of these fellows
only wants to get quickly home again, while the sailors, who may want to
go abuccaneering, would not care about having the soldiers with them.
I shall give a hint to the captain of my company tonight as to what
is going on, but I don't much expect he will pay any attention to it.
Officers never believe these things till it is too late, and you see
I can't give them any names yet o