ously wrote a few lines on a
leaf torn from the back of a sea-stained log-book. Jack tucked it
carefully away and thus they parted company, perhaps to meet no more in
life. Through the waning afternoon, Jack stowed himself on deck and held
long converse with Joe Hawkridge when they met between the keel-chocks
of the jolly-boat. Because he shared not the skipper's feeling of
distrust, Jack sought the active aid of his chum of a pirate lad. It was
agreed that they should endeavor to reach the forecastle together when
the ship's bell tolled the hour of beginning the first night watch.

Joe hoped he might decoy or divert the sentries. If not, he had another
scheme or two. A gunner's mate of the prize crew had sent him to
overhaul the lashings of the battery of nine-pounders which were ranged
along the waist. With several other hands Joe had made all secure,
because the guns were apt to get adrift in such weather as this and
plunge to and fro across the deck like maddened beasts. Now Joe
Hawkridge had lingered, on pretext of making sure that one forward gun
could be fired, if needs be, as a distress signal should the ship open
her seams or strike upon a shoal.

He had satisfied himself that the tompion, or wooden plug which sealed
the muzzle was tight, and that no water had leaked through the wrapping
of tarred canvas which protected the touch-hole. Before replacing them,
he had made two or three trips to the deck-house amidships in which was
the carpenter's room. Each time he tucked inside his shirt as many
forged iron spikes, bolts, and what not as he could safely carry.

Unobserved, he shoved this junk down the throat of the nine-pounder and
wadded it fast with handfuls of oakum. He worked coolly, without haste,
as agile as a monkey when the ship careened and the sea spurted through
the cracks of the gun-ports. Well pleased with his task, he said to
himself, with that grin which no peril could obliterate:

"God alone knows how I can strike fire to a match and keep it alight,
but the sky shows signs of easier weather."

The fury of the storm had, indeed, diminished. It might be a respite
before the wind hauled into another quarter and renewed its ferocious
violence, but the air was no longer thick with the whirling smother of
foam and spray and the straining topmasts had ceased to bend like whips.
The ship was gallantly easing herself of the waves which broke aboard
and the rearing billows astern were not threatening t