ed cruelly.

Worse than this privation was the increasing roughness of the sea. It
was a blithesome wind, rollicking across a sparkling carpet of blue,
with the little white clouds in flocks above, like lambs at play. But
the raft was more and more tossed about and the waves gushed over it
like foam on a reef. Through the day the castaways might cling to it but
they dreaded another night in which their weary bodies could not
possibly ward off sleep. Even though they tied themselves fast, what if
the raft should be capsized by the heave of the mounting swell? It was
the merest makeshift, scrambled together in haste as a ferry from the
wreck of the _Plymouth Adventure_.

No longer did Jack Cockrell bemoan his situation. Taking pattern from
his comrade in misery, he set his teeth to await the end as became a
true man of gentle blood. After all, drowning was easier than the slow
torments of hunger and thirst.

Every little while one of them crawled from under the canvas to look for
a ship. It was the vigilant Joe Hawkridge who, at length, discovered
what was very like a fleck of cloud on the ocean's rim, to the
southward. Afraid that his vision tricked him, he displayed no emotion
but held himself as steady as any stoic. Jack was wildly excited,
blubbering and waving his arms about. His hard-won composure was broken
to bits. But even though it were a ship, Joe well knew it might pass
afar off and so miss sighting this bit of raft which drifted almost
submerged.

Slowly the semblance of a wandering fragment of cloud climbed the curve
of the watery globe until Joe Hawkridge perceived, with a mariner's eye,
that it was, indeed, a vessel steering in their direction.

"Two masts!" said he, "and to'gallant-sails set to profit by this brave
breeze. A brig, Jack! Had she been a ship, my heart 'ud ha' been in my
throat. Blackbeard's _Revenge_ might be working up the coast, did she
live through the storm."

"A brig?" joyfully cried Jack. "Ah, ha, I see her two masts plainly,
with mine own eyes. And they soar too tall for a merchant trader. Her
sails, too,--she spreads them like great wings. Who else will it be than
Captain Stede Bonnet in the _Royal James?_"

"A shift of luck is due us, by the bones of Saint Iago," shouted Joe, in
a thrill of glad anticipation. "Watch her closely. You saw the brig in
Charles Town harbor. Bless God, this may well be Cap'n Stede Bonnet
yonder, an' perchance he cruises in search of Blackbeard to