nce in the cabin and Joe's conviction that some
uncommon devilment was afoot. It appeared as though "Tallow Dick"
Spender, that unwholesome master of the _Triumph_ sloop, had been chosen
as the right bower.

And now there arose a sudden and riotous noise in the camp. It was not
the mirth and song of jolly pirates a-pleasuring ashore but the
ferocious tumult of men in conflict and taken unawares. Perched in the
tree, Jack Cockrell listened all agog as the sounds rose and fell with
the breeze which swayed the long gray moss that draped the branches. He
heard a few pistol shots and then was startled to see a spurt of flame
dart from a gun-port of the sloop. The dull report reached him an
instant later. He could see that the gun had been fired from the
vessel's shoreward battery. It meant that Blackbeard was making a target
of some part of the camp. Another gun belched its cloud of smoke.

The noise died down, save for intermittent shouts and one long wail of
anguish. Presently a boat moved out past the sloop. A dozen men tugged
at the oars and others stood crowded in the stern-sheets. Jack caught
the gleam of weapons and thought he recognized the squat, broad figure
of Blackbeard himself beside the man at the steering oar. Behind this
pinnace from the _Revenge_ trailed two other boats in tow. They passed
in slow procession, out between the vessels. The boats which the pinnace
towed were not empty. Instead of sitting upon the thwarts, men seemed to
be strewn about in them as if they had been tossed over the gunwales
like so much dunnage.

Jack rubbed his eyes in amazement and watched the line of boats turn to
follow the channel which led out of the sheltered roadstead to the sea
beyond. When they vanished beyond a sandy island, the lad in the
live-oak tree said to himself:

"My guess is that Blackbeard has put a stopper on all talk of mutiny by
one bold stroke. A bloody weeding-out, and in those two boats are the
poor wretches who were taken alive. Alas, one of 'em may be Joe
Hawkridge unless he be dead already. He talked too much of Stede Bonnet
aboard the ship. And there were sneaking dogs in the crew who spied on
their comrades. We saw them enter the cabin last night."

There was no getting around the evidence. It fitted together all too
well. Jack sadly reflected that, beyond a doubt, he had seen the last of
gallant, loyal Joe Hawkridge. Left alone with the pirogue, which he
could not paddle single-handed, it was f