Hacha, Santa Marta, Cartagena--in fact at every spot along
the Main where the Spaniards had established themselves, holding the
towns to ransom and acquiring all the booty possible while working their
way westward. But George would have none of it, he had already acquired
quite as much booty as he desired to possess at that moment; for he
wanted to keep his men keen, and he knew that nothing saps a man's
courage more, and makes him less willing to engage in a desperate
enterprise, than the possession of ample means, and he feared that if he
acquired too much treasure before he had succeeded in finding and
rescuing his brother, the crew might insist upon abandoning the quest
and returning home to enjoy the fruit of their spoils. Therefore, as
soon as the south-western extremity of Margarita was cleared, the ship's
head was hauled up to west-north-west for the northern extremity of the
peninsula of Yucatan.

On the following forenoon a small island, the northern extremity of
which was studded with numerous outlying rocks, was sighted ahead, and
passed, close to the northward, about an hour before noon; and late on
in the afternoon another and somewhat larger island, grouped about with
innumerable rocky satellites, was sighted and passed to larboard. Then
nothing more was seen until, on the fifth day out from Margarita, about
an hour before midnight, the alarm was suddenly raised that broken water
appeared ahead, and the ship was quickly brought to the wind, on the
starboard tack, just in time to avoid plunging headlong upon a reef
projecting from the northern extremity of a small island, of the
existence of which Dyer declared himself to be utterly ignorant.
Luckily for the adventurers, there was a half-moon riding high in the
sky, which, together with the highly phosphorescent state of the sea,
and the admirable look-out which was being maintained by George's
orders, enabled them to detect the danger in time to avoid it.

Hastily summoned from his bunk, upon the occurrence of the emergency,
George ascended to the poop, and carefully surveyed the situation. To
the northward there appeared what looked like the loom of high land, but
if it was what it appeared to be, it was sufficiently distant to be of
no immediate consequence, and the young commander scarcely favoured it
with a second glance; it was his immediate surroundings that most
insistently claimed his immediate attention, for as a matter of fact the
ship had