enture_ shoved a knife in his ribs to the hilt. He is flat in a bunk
but he gives the orders an' it's jump at the word."

"A hard man to kill," said Peter Tobey. "Take me aboard. 'Tis best I
have speech with him. Let the people wait here on the cay. They can
stand another hour of it."

There was fierce protest among the marooned pirates but the carpenter's
mate gruffly demanded to know if they wished to be carried into the
harbor and turned over to Blackbeard. This gave the mob something to
think about and they permitted the boat to pull away from them without
much objection.

"A rough joke on you lads, I call it, to be dumped on this bit o'
purgatory," said the coxswain to Peter Tobey. "The great Cap'n Teach
must ha' been in one of his tantrums."

"It had been long brewing, as ye know," answered the carpenter's mate.
"These men with you in the snow 'ud sooner follow Ned Rackham,
flint-hearted though he be, than to rejoin the _Revenge_."

"Not so loud," cautioned the coxswain. "We'll see which way the cat is
going to jump. Us poor devils is sore uneasy at findin' how you were
dealt with."

"What of the master and crew of the snow?" asked Tobey. "Were they
snuffed out? That 'ud be Rackham's way."

"No, we set 'em off in a boat, within sight of the coast. Ned Rackham
was too shrewd to bloody his hands, bein' helpless in this tub of a snow
which could neither fight nor show her heels if she was chased."

Few men as there were aboard the snow, they were smartly disciplined and
kept things shipshape, as Peter Tobey noted when he climbed on deck. A
few minutes later he was summoned into the small cabin. Propped up in
the skipper's berth, Sailing-Master Ned Rackham had a pinched and
ghastly look. He was a young man, with clean-cut, handsome features, and
a certain refinement of manner when he cared to assume it. The rumor was
that he was the black sheep of an English house of some distinction and
that he had enlisted in the Royal Navy under a false name.

"What is this mare's-nest, my good Tobey?" said he as the carpenter's
mate stood diffidently fumbling with his cap. "Marooned? Twenty men of
you on a reef of sand? Were ye naughty boys whilst I was absent?"

"No more than them I could name who planned to go a-cruisin' in the
_Plymouth Adventure_," doggedly replied Peter Tobey who resented the
tone of sneering patronage.

"Fie, fie! You talk boldly for a man in your situation. Never mind! Why
the honor of this vis