companions and had a confused idea of digging into
the sand and burying himself from view. The discovery that these were
Blackbeard's pirates in the boat created general confusion but there was
no fear of instant death. It was a situation excessively awkward for the
marooned company but nevertheless open to parley and argument.

By hurried agreement, the carpenter's mate, Peter Tobey by name, was
chosen as spokesman. Before he began to talk with the men in the boat,
Joe Hawkridge called to him in piteous accents and begged him to step
back in rear of the crowd for a moment. Tobey shouted to the boat to
wait outside the surf and not attempt a landing.

"What's the row, Joe?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "'Tis a
disappointment for all of us,--this tangle with Rackham's crew,--but why
any worse for you?"

"I can't tell it all, Peter, but my life is forfeit once they lay hands
on me."

"What tarradiddle is this? As I remember it in the _Revenge_, when all
hands of us were cruisin' together, ye had no mortal enemies."

"It happened in the _Plymouth Adventure_," answered Joe. "There be men
in yon boat that 'ud delight in flayin' me alive. I swear it, Peter, by
my mother's name. Give me up, and my blood is on your head."

The boy's words carried conviction. The stolid carpenter's mate pondered
and knitted his bushy brows.

"I never did a wilful murder yet," said he. "Mallet and chisel come
readier to my fist than a cutlass. Bide here, Joe. Let me get my
bearings. This has the look of a ticklish matter for the lot of us. I
shall be keepin' a weather eye lifted for squalls."

In mortal fear of discovery by the men in the boat, Joe flattened
himself behind a palmetto log which had drifted to the other side of the
island. Here he was hidden unless the boat should make a landing. The
carpenter's mate waded out to join his companions who were amiably
conversing with Ned Rackham's pirates. They had all been shipmates
either in the _Revenge_ or the _Triumph_ sloop and there was boisterous
curiosity concerning the divers adventures while they had been apart.
Rackham's crew had been reduced to eighteen men when they were lucky
enough to capture the snow, it was learned. With this small company he
dared not go pirating on his own account and so had decided to rejoin
Blackbeard.

"Is Ned Rackham aboard the snow?" asked Peter Tobey of the boat's
coxswain.

"He is all o' that, matey, though the big bos'n of the _Plymouth
Adv