thampton in charge of such a captain and such a crew as
this. And then, almost immediately, the idea came to him in a flash
that perhaps this was not the crew with which the _Dunkery Beacon_ had
sailed! Now he seemed to see the whole state of affairs as if it had
been printed on paper. The _Dunkery Beacon_ had been captured by one of
the pirates, probably not long after she got outside the Caribbees, and
that instead of trying to take the treasure on board their own vessel,
the scoundrels had rid the _Dunkery_ of her captain and crew, and had
taken possession of the steamer and everything in it. This would explain
her course when she was first sighted from the yacht. She was not going
at all to Rio Janeiro--she was on her way across the Atlantic.

Now everything that he had seen, and everything that he had heard,
confirmed this new belief. Of course the pirate Captain did not wish to
lay to when he was first hailed, and he probably did so at last simply
because he found he need not be afraid of the yacht, and that he could
not rid himself of her unless he stopped to see what she wanted. Of
course this fellow would not have him go back to the yacht and make a
report. Of course this crew did not understand how things were placed
and stored on board the vessel, for they themselves had been on board of
her but a very short time. The Captain spoke English, but he was not an
Englishman.

Shirley saw plainer and plainer every second that the _Dunkery Beacon_
had been captured by pirates; that probably not a man of her former crew
was on board, and that he was here a prisoner in the hands of these
wretches--cut-throats for all he knew, and yet he did not reproach
himself for having run into such a trap. He had done the proper thing,
in a proper, orderly, and seamanlike way. He had had the most unexpected
bad luck, but he did not in the least see any reason to blame himself.

He saw, however, a great deal of reason to fear for himself, especially
as the evening drew on. That black-headed villain of a Captain did not
want him on board, and while he might not care to toss him into the sea
in view of a vessel which was fast enough to follow him wherever he
might go, there was no reason why he should not do what he pleased, if,
under cover of the night, he got away from that vessel.

The fact that he was allowed to go where he pleased, and see what he
pleased, gave much uneasiness to Shirley. It looked to him as if they
did not c