She carried a heavy spread of canvas on
her yards, and lay very low in the water."

The pilot nodded.

"Me remember him, sar; could not make out de craft nohow. Some
people said she pirate, but dar ain't no pirates now."

"That is so, Dominique. Still there may be reasons sometimes for
wanting to overhaul a vessel, and I have such a reason. What it is,
is of no consequence. Pedro tells me that when she got under sail
she went west, but as it was just dark when she sailed, she may
very well have turned as soon as she was hidden from sight and have
gone east; and it seems to me likely that she would, in the first
place, have made for one of the Virgin Islands."

"It depends, sar, upon the trade that he wanted to do. Not much
trade dere, sar. The trade is done at Tortola, dat English island;
and at Saint Thomas or Santa Cruz, dem Danish islands; all de oders
do little trade."

"Yes, Dominique, but I don't think that she wants to trade at all.
What she wants to do is to lie up quietly, where she would not be
noticed."

"Plenty of places in the islands for dat, sar."

"Did they take a pilot here?"

Dominique shook his head.

"No, sar; several offers, but no take. If want to hide, they no
want pilot from here; they take up a fisherman among the islands,
to show dem good place. But plenty of places much better in San
Domingo or Cuba. Why dey stop Virgin Islands? Little places, many
got no water, no food, no noting but bare rock."

"I think that they would go in there, because, as the hurricane
season had begun when they got here, they would think it better to
run into the port."

"Hurricane not bad here, sar; bery bad down at what English call
Leeward Islands. Have dem sometimes here, not bery often; had one
four days ago, one ob de worse me remember. We not likely to have
another dis year."

"That is satisfactory, Dominique, We got caught in it the other
day, and I don't want to meet another. Well, you understand what I
want. To begin with, to search all the places a vessel that did not
want to attract notice would be likely to lie up in. We want to
question people as to whether she has been seen, and if we don't
find her, to hear whether, when last seen, she was sailing in the
direction of the Leeward Islands, or going west."

"Me find out, sar," the negro said, confidently. "Someone sure to
have seen her."

"Well, you had better come below. I have got a chart, and you shall
mark all the islands where t