se of him trudging in the column which
had followed Stede Bonnet, with trumpet and drum, to attack the hostile
Indians. Jack's heart warmed to Trimble Rogers and also to young Bill
Saxby. They would find some way out of all this tribulation.

"Whither lies Captain Bonnet's stout ship?" eagerly demanded Jack.

"On this side the Western Ocean," smiled Saxby. "We shall waste no time
in finding her. We had better bide where we are a few hours, eh,
Trimble?"

"Aye, and double back up the stream in the canoe to spend the night on
dry land and push on afoot at dawn. If we wait to sight Blackbeard's
boats come in from sea, 'twill aid us to reckon how far out they went
and what the bearings are."

"So Captain Bonnet may sail to pick off those poor seamen marooned,"
exclaimed Jack.

"He is not apt to leave 'em to bleach their bones," said Bill Saxby.
"And when it comes to closing in with Blackbeard, they will have a
grudge of their own."

They made themselves as comfortable as possible on the bottom of the
pirogue. Now and then Jack climbed the live-oak to look for the return
of the boats. There was no more leisure for the pirates left in the ship
and the sloop. Evidently Blackbeard had been alarmed by the tidings that
two of Stede Bonnet's men had been caught spying him out and had made
their escape in the confusion. The sloop was now listed over in shoal
water and Bill Saxby ventured the opinion that they intended to take the
mast out of her and put it in the _Revenge_.

"Along with most of her guns, I take it," said Trimble Rogers. "What
with losing all those men, in one way or another, this Blackbeard, as
Cap'n Ed'ard Teach miscalls hisself, must needs abandon the sloop. The
more the merrier, says I, when we come at close quarters."

Jack asked many curious questions, by way of passing the time. The old
man was easy to read. He had been a lawless sea rover in the days when
there was both gold and glory in harrying Spanish towns and galleons,
from Mexico to Peru. The real buccaneers had vanished but he was too old
a dog to learn new tricks and he faithfully served Stede Bonnet, who had
a spark of the chivalry and manliness which had burned so brightly in
that idolized master, Captain Edward Davis.

As for this blue-eyed smiling young Bill Saxby, he had been a small
tradesman in London. Through no fault of his own, he was cruelly
imprisoned for debt and, after two years, shipped to the Carolina
plantations as no bett