the only chance; an' for
the savin' o' my own life! _I'll do that Lord help me, I'll do it_!"

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

PLOT UPON PLOT.

The _Condor_ is sailing barge, with a light breeze several points abaft
the beam.

Jack Striker is at the wheel; and as the sea is smooth he finds it easy
steering, having little to do but keep the barque steady by taking an
occasional squint at the compass-card.

The moon--which has just risen--shining in his face, shows it to be that
of a man over fifty, with the felon in its every line and lineament. It
is beardless, pock-pitted, with thick shapeless lips, broad hanging
jowls, nostrils agape, and nose flattened like the snout of a bull-dog.
Eyes gosling-green, both bleary, one of them bloodshot. For all, eyes
that, by his own boast, "can see into a millstone as far as the man who
picks it."

He has not been many minutes at his post when he sees some one
approaching from the waist of the ship; a man, whom he makes out to be
the first mate.

"Comin' to con me," growls the ex-convict. "Don't want any o' his
connin', not I. Jack Striker can keep a ship on her course well's him,
or any other board o' this craft."

He is on the starboard side of the wheel, while the mate is approaching
along the port gangway. The latter, after springing up to the
poop-deck, stops opposite the steersman, as he does so, saying:

"Well, Striker, old chap! not much trouble with her to-night. She's
going free too, with the wind in the right quarter. We ought to be
making good nine knots?"

"All o' that, I daresay, sir," rejoins Striker, mollified by the affable
manner in which the first officer has addressed him. "The barque ain't
a bad 'un to go, though she be a queery-rigged craft's ever I war aboard
on."

"You've set foot on a goodish many, I should say, judgin' from the way
ye handle a helm. I see you understan' steerin' a ship."

"I oughter, master," answers the helmsman, further flattered by the
compliment to his professional skill. "Jack Striker's had a fair show
o' schoolin' to that bizness."

"Been a man-o'-war's man, hain't you?"

"Ay, all o' that. Any as doubts it can see the warrant on my back, an'
welcome to do so. Plenty o' the cat's claws there, an' I don't care a
brass fardin' who knows it."

"Neyther need ye. Many a good sailor can show the same. For myself, I
hain't had the cat, but I've seed a man-o'-war sarvice, an' some
roughish treatment too. An' I've