buccaneer
faced them with a cold glitter in his eyes. For a while he kept them
wriggling under his piercing scrutiny. Then he spoke, his voice even and
dangerous.

"You will be under Mr. Herriot's orders. I think you are wise enough not
to try to mutiny with him. But if you should undertake it, remember that
no sooner does your sloop draw away to over one mile's distance than I
will come after you and blow you out of water without parley. There are
just enough sails left aboard your ship to keep headway in a light
breeze. Over with you now!"

As darkness deepened the three sloops set out westward under shortened
canvas, keeping so close that the steersmen hailed each other
frequently through the night. Bob and Jeremy went to their bunks gloomy
and subdued. But Jeremy's sorrows were lightened by the feeling that
sometime, somewhere, he would find a use for the chart, the outline of
which he had firmly fixed in his memory that afternoon. And wondering
how, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIX

The fair weather held and for several days the little fleet cruised west
by south, then southerly when they had picked up the Virginia Capes. The
pirate crew, in spite of their impatience to divide the cumbersome booty
they had helped to win, kept in a fairly good temper. Hopes were high
and quarrels were quickly put aside with a "Take it easy, boys--wait
till the sharin's over." Bob and Jeremy got off with a minimum of hard
words and might have considered their lot almost agreeable but for one
incident. The whippings which were a regular part of boys' lives aboard
ship in those days, had always been administered by George Dunkin. As
bo's'n, it was not only his right but his duty to lay in with a rope's
end occasionally. He was one of the fairest men in Bonnet's company and
Jeremy had never felt any great injustice in the treatment Dunkin had
accorded him. Since his lieutenancy aboard the prize-sloop, however, the
bo's'n had necessarily ceased to be the executive of punishment, and
when Monday, recognized on all the seas as whipping day, came around,
there was a very secret hope in Jeremy's heart that the office would be
forgotten. As for Bob, he had so far escaped the lash, it being
understood that he was not an ordinary ship's boy. As the day wore on,
the Yankee lad remained as inconspicuous as possible, and began to think
that he was safe. About mid-afternoon, however, a gang of buccaneers,
working at the rent in the bows w