refore we were kept
jumping from that time until dark, and then had on board a good twenty
bushels of fair stock. Not enough from a money-making point of view;
but plenty to serve our purpose, for it might not be well to let the
Britishers think we could take on a cargo quickly.

Now the greater portion of this time we were in view of those aboard
the two vessels we had visited, and by using their spy-glasses it
would have been possible for them to make out what we were doing.

Once the night began to shut in, however, we were out of sight, and
Darius said as we hauled in the drags for the last time:

"Now we'll run over for the Tangiers, lads, an' stay there till two or
three o'clock in the mornin'. If Bill don't show up by that time we
must count that he couldn't get away, or was caught in the act."

"Are you simply reckoning on laying off the islands?" I asked,
understanding that a man might swim ashore at one point while we were
at another, and easily fail of finding us.

"I reckon that some of us will take to the canoe, an' cruise off the
western shore lookin' for him. His best time for makin' the try will
be when the last dog-watch goes off duty at eight o'clock, or again at
midnight. It won't be easy to paddle 'round so long; but it's a man's
life that you're after."

"Jerry and I will go in the canoe," I said, thinking it no more than
right for us to perform the greatest share of the labor since we were
held, by Darius, responsible for making the attempt to aid the sailor.

We made a hearty supper that night, eating the last of the ham, and
frying a generous quantity of oysters with it, and then the pungy was
hove to on the westward side of the large island, as near inshore as
we dared to run.

I proposed that she be anchored lest the wind set her on the beach;
but Darius claimed that it was necessary for us to be ready to leave
at a moment's notice, and promised to have an eye on the craft all the
while we were absent.

Then Jerry and I took to the canoe, with good prospect of half a
night's work before us, and paddled around to the eastward, after
which we set about going back and forth for a distance of a quarter of
a mile, since that seemed to be the place a man naturally would make
for.

We could see the riding lights of the ship plainly, and although it
would require considerable labor to swim so far, it should be readily
done by one who was at all familiar with the work.

"We'd find ourselve