de Bonnet's crew. He could distinguish the words as they rolled them
out in buoyant, stentorian harmony:

"An' when my precious leg was lopt,
Just for a bit of fun
I picks it up, on t'other hopt,
An' rammed it in a gun.
'What's that for?' cries out Ginger Dick,
'What for? my jumpin' beau?
Why, to give the lubbers one more kick,'
_Yo, ho, with the rum below!_"

CHAPTER XII

A PRIVATE ACCOUNT TO SETTLE

THE ship's boat was bound into the bay, probably to lie there for
daybreak, and Jack Cockrell rushed down to the beach where he set up
such a frantic hullabaloo that the sailors ceased singing and held their
breath and their oars suspended. They had come to look for Bill Saxby
and Trimble Rogers, but this was a strange voice. It was so odd a
circumstance that several of them hailed the shore with questions loud
and perplexed.

"Master John Cockrell, at your service," came back the reply. "Captain
Bonnet knows me. I am the lad that clouted a six-foot pirate of yours
for being saucy to a maid in Charles Town."

This aroused a roar of laughter and there were gusty shouts of:

"Here's that same Will Brant in the boat with us. He shakes in his boots
at the sound of ye."

"What's the game, lad? Have ye taken a ship of your own to scour the
Main?"

Jack ignored this good-natured badinage and, in dignified accents, told
them to come ashore and take him off to the _Royal James_. In this
company he had a reputation to live up to as a man of parts and valor.
They let the boat ground on the smooth sand and one of them lighted a
torch of pitch-pine splinters. The fine young gentleman who had strolled
arm-in-arm with Stede Bonnet to the tavern green was a ragged scarecrow
and bedaubed with red clay and black mud. This aroused their sympathy
before he told them of his escape from the _Revenge_ and his adventures
with Bill Saxby and the crippled buccaneer. In their turn they explained
how Captain Bonnet had sent them down the river to await the return of
the two men who were now stranded in the wilderness two days' march
distant.

"And why did your captain shift the brig from her anchorage off the
island?" asked Jack.

This amused the boat's crew who nudged each other and were evasive until
the master's mate who was in charge went far enough to say:

"A sloop came in from the Pamlico River. Our ship sought a snugger
har