the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. It
hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "What
d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "What d'ye
mean, ye villains? D'ye mean to stave a hole in us?"

"Why," said the man who had pushed it, "you saw 'twasn't done a purpose,
didn't you?"

"Well, you try it again, and somebody'll get hurt," said the man in the
boat, showing the butt end of his pistol.

The men on the wharf began laughing. Just then the boatswain came down
from the settlement again, and out along the landing. The threatened
turbulence quieted as he approached, and the crowd moved sullenly aside
to let him pass. He did not bring any pilot with him, and he jumped down
into the stern of the boat, saying, briefly, "Push off." The crowd of
loungers stood looking after them as they rowed away, and when the
boat was some distance from the landing they burst out into a volley
of derisive yells. "The villains!" said the boatswain, "they are all in
league together. They wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to
look for a pilot."

The lieutenant and his sailing master stood watching the boat as
it approached. "Couldn't you, then, get a pilot, Baldwin?" said Mr.
Maynard, as the boatswain scrambled aboard.

"No, I couldn't, sir," said the man. "Either they're all banded
together, or else they're all afraid of the villains. They wouldn't even
let me go up into the settlement to find one."

"Well, then," said Mr. Maynard, "we'll make shift to work in as best we
may by ourselves. 'Twill be high tide against one o'clock. We'll run in
then with sail as far as we can, and then we'll send you ahead with the
boat to sound for a pass, and we'll follow with the sweeps. You know the
waters pretty well, you say."

"They were saying ashore that the villain hath forty men aboard," said
the boatswain.(2)

(2) The pirate captain had really only twenty-five men
aboard of his ship at the time of the battle.

Lieutenant Maynard's force consisted of thirty-five men in the schooner
and twenty-five men in the sloop. He carried neither cannons nor
carronades, and neither of his vessels was very well fitted for the
purpose for which they were designed. The schooner, which he himself
commanded, offered almost no protection to the crew. The rail was not
more than a foot high in the waist, and the men on the deck were almost
entirely exposed. The rail of the sloop