bore five miles to the north and east of them. On the fifth they
were at anchor in the Bay of Tortoises at the Island of La Vache, where
Sharkey and his four men had been hunting. It was a well-wooded place,
with the palms and underwood growing down to the thin crescent of silver
sand which skirted the shore. They had hoisted the black flag and the
red pennant, but no answer came from the shore. Craddock strained his
eyes, hoping every instant to see a boat shoot out to them with Sharkey
seated in the sheets. But the night passed away, and a day and yet
another night, without any sign of the men whom they were endeavouring
to trap. It looked as if they were already gone.

On the second morning Craddock went ashore in search of some proof
whether Sharkey and his men were still upon the island. What he found
reassured him greatly. Close to the shore was a boucan of green wood,
such as was used for preserving the meat, and a great store of barbecued
strips of ox-flesh was hung upon lines all round it. The pirate ship
had not taken off her provisions, and therefore the hunters were still
upon the island.

Why had they not shown themselves? Was it that they had detected that
this was not their own ship? Or was it that they were hunting in the
interior of the island, and were not on the look-out for a ship yet?
Craddock was still hesitating between the two alternatives, when a Carib
Indian came down with information. The pirates were in the island, he
said, and their camp was a day's march from the Sea. They had stolen
his wife, and the marks of their stripes were still pink upon his brown
back. Their enemies were his friends, and he would lead them to where
they lay.

Craddock could not have asked for anything better; so early next
morning, with a small party armed to the teeth, he set off, under the
guidance of the Carib. All day they struggled through brushwood and
clambered over rocks, pushing their way further and further into the
desolate heart of the island. Here and there they found traces of the
hunters, the bones of a slain ox, or the marks of feet in a morass, and
once, towards evening, it seemed to some of them that they heard the
distant rattle of guns.

That night they spent under the trees, and pushed on again with the
earliest light. About noon they came to the huts of bark, which, the
Carib told them, were the camp of the hunters, but they were silent and
deserted. No doubt their occupan