, and withheld the groans behind his set teeth, but
his lank body was a-tremble with pain and fatigue. Whenever he sank down
to rest they had to raise him up and set him on his legs again before he
could totter a little way farther.

"What say, Jack, to slingin' him on a pole, neck and heels?" suggested
Bill Saxby. "Can we make him fast with our belts?"

"And choke him to death? In Charles Town I saw Captain Bonnet's pirates
carry their wounded in litters woven of boughs."

The suffering Trimble put a stop to this by shouting:

"Avast wi' the maunderin' nonsense! Push on, lads, and leave this old
hulk be. Many a goodly man have I seen drop in the jungle. What matters
it? Speed ye to Cap'n Bonnet."

"Here is one pirate that won't desert a shipmate," declared Bill Saxby.
"And how can we push on without you, old True-Penny, to lay your nose to
the trail? I took no heed o' the marks and landfalls."

"Like a sailor ashore, mouth open and eyes shut," rasped the buccaneer
of Hispaniola.

"Methinks I might find my way in this Carolina country," ventured Jack
Cockrell. "It would be easier for a landsman like myself than for Bill
who is city-bred and a seaman besides."

"More wisdom from the stripling," said Trimble. "Willing as I be to die
sooner than delay ye and so vex Stede Bonnet, it 'ud please me to live
to overhaul that sea chest of Blackbeard's."

"I'll stand by this condemned old relic," amiably agreed Bill Saxby. "Do
you request Cap'n Bonnet to send a party to salvage us, Jack."

"He will take pleasure in it, Bill. Before I go let me help you find
shelter,--dry limbs for props and a thatch of palmetto leaves."

"Take no thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oaf
to work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's ship waits in
the Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You will
find her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where the
river makes in from the sea. There will be a lookout kept and I can tell
ye where to meet a boat."

With a memory as retentive as a printed page, the keen-eyed old wanderer
described the landscape league by league, the streams and their
direction, the hills which were prominent, the broad stretches of
savannah or grassy meadow, the belts of pine forest, the tongues of
swamp which had to be avoided. Jack was compelled to repeat the detailed
instructions over and over, and he was a far more studious pupil than
when snuffy P