ew courage, and he dared to again fix his eyes on
the beach and the bit of sea where the wreckers' boat was gracefully
rocking on the short land-swells.

All four returned in little more than an hour, and sat down under a wild
plantain tree, not three feet from Frank's place of concealment.

"There's no one on the island, I'm certain of that," said Montes, whose
squat, ugly form was so near the loop-hole that it actually darkened
Frank's range of vision. "I can't just make it out, but I know this
much--that's the Sea Eagle, and she's ours dead sure! We'll get her off
to-morrow at flood-tide. There's a bit of a blow in that cloud a-comin'
up in the east, but it won't amount to much, so we'll light a fire, get
something to eat, and take it easy."

"It's pretty nigh a month since she stranded, by the depth of the sand
around her," remarked Turpie, looking first at the schooner and then at
the fire he was kindling a little way from the others. "I'd like to know
what's become of the captain and the mate and Jack?"

"I reckon Dunham's in Davy Jones' locker, for that air slash Dardano
gave him wasn't no scratch, I can tell you. They was short of hands, and
didn't have no time to attend to him; but that don't satisfactorily
account for the schooner bein' here, and dismantled as she is," rejoined
Montes, with a puzzled air. "Captain Thorne wasn't the man to abandon
his ship while a plank held together, and there's the Sea Eagle with as
sound a hull as ever floated, and a--"

"And the better luck for us," roughly interrupted Sagasta. "I'd like to
have got a whack at the boy; but, since he's food for sharks, I'll call
it square. Wreckers have been here before us--there's no doubt of
that--and they've cleaned her out pretty thoroughly, too; but we'll take
the schooner, and she's a good enough prize to suit me," he laughed,
with a cunning glance at Montes. "Yes, good enough, and as lawful a one
as was ever picked up on the high seas," he continued, in a rather more
positive tone of voice. "All we have to do is to get her off, bend on a
sail or two, and head her for Bonacca or Barbette. Once there, we'll
just paint out her old name and paint in a new one, and then, with that
dark water-line transformed into a light blue, and I am Captain Sagasta,
if you please, with fair pay for your services, of course, mates."

This last remark of Sagasta's did not seem to meet with much favor from
Chris and the mulatto, but they were prudentl