the boy cried.

"Yes, lad, we've beat them," grinned Quinn, leaning heavily against the
door. "But it's Nat's last fight. I've got a bellyful--more than I can
carry. The old man is bound for Davy Jones's locker."

Slowly he slid to the deck.

Robert carried him into the cabin, bleeding from a dozen wounds. He was
badly hacked, and from a gunshot wound in the vitals he was bleeding to
death.

His comrade forced liquor between his teeth and offered to examine his
wounds. Old Nat waved him aside.

"No use. I'm for hell." He smiled and began to sing in a quavering voice
the chorus of the grim old buccaneers' song.

It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red--
The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he,
A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!
Heave yo ho! and away with me.

It must have been weird to hear the man, after so wicked and turbulent a
life, troll from ashen lips the godless song of the old seadogs with
whom he had broken all the commandments.

Only once after this did his mind come back to the present. A few
minutes before the end the old pirate's eyes opened. He tried to whisper
something, but could not. Feebly his hand tapped at something hard above
his heart. Robert took from next the skin a package wrapped in oilcloth.
Quinn's eyes lit.

In this was the map of Doubloon Spit.

Imagine now the situation on this ship of death. Three men only were
left alive, and one of these so badly wounded that he leaped overboard
in madness before morning. Of the remaining two, neither could sleep
without the fear of murder in his heart.

Two days wore away, one holding the upper and the other the lower deck.
Meanwhile the ship drifted, a derelict on the face of the Pacific.

At length an agreement was patched up. Slack and Wallace sailed the ship
together, each with one eye on the other. It is certain that neither
slept without locked and bolted doors.

On the fourth day after truce had been declared, land was sighted. While
it was the boy's watch and the captain was asleep Wallace managed to
lower a boat and paddle to the shore. He had scarcely reached the beach
when a tropical storm swept across the waters. At daybreak the _Jennie
Slack_ was no longer in sight. Neither schooner nor owner was ever seen
again.

Robert Wallace was picked up several days later by a Mexican
sheepherder. In time he worked his way back to San Francisco. At the
completion of the Union Pacific Railroad he left California for t