uor available for the usual choruses to be sung. Most of the
pirates swilled it like pigs and stopped for nothing till they could
move no longer, but lay helpless where they happened to fall. Only a
bare three men stayed sober enough to sail the ship. Jeremy thanked his
stars for fair weather when he thought of the case they might have been
in had the orgy occurred in a night of storm.

Next day a few of the crew woke at breakfast time. The rest snored out
their drunken sleep below. Daggs came on deck as usual, to the outward
eye quite his careless, ugly self. His two young enemies watched him
closely, for they suspected that the drink he had taken had helped to
Jeremy's previous discovery. As the hours went by, one after another of
the buccaneers woke and dragged himself on deck to growl the discomfort
out of him. By mid-afternoon Jeremy, going below, found all the bunks
empty. He slipped behind a chest far up in the dark bow angle and waited
for a signal from Bob. The boys had seen the man with the broken nose
watching the decks uneasily for hours and suspected that he meant to go
below as soon as the fo'c's'le was empty.

Jeremy must have been in his hiding place close to half an hour before
he heard Bob's sharply whistled tune close outside in the gun deck. He
ducked lower behind his box and presently heard steps descending the
ladder. A guarded observation taken from a dark corner close to the
floor disclosed the slouching form of Daggs standing by the table.

The buccaneer took a long time for his cautious survey of the fo'c's'le.
Standing perfectly still he turned his body from the hips and gave the
place a silent scrutiny before he set to work. He proceeded just as he
had done before and quickly had the chest open and its contents spread
upon the planking. He had just unrolled the chart when a shout from the
hatch made him leap to his feet. "Sail ho!" was being passed from mouth
to mouth above, and already there were men on the ladder. In a fever of
haste, Daggs half-pushed, half-threw the chest under his bunk and shoved
the loose clothes and small arms after it. The paper he still held in
his hand. After a second of indecision, while he looked over his
shoulder at the descending crowd of seamen, he thrust it in on top of
the box and stood erect, flushed and swaying. The hands were preoccupied
and none seemed to notice his act. There was a general scurrying of
sailors to get out their cutlasses and pistols, and