Abel Dell's shrift had been a short one. Fortune had been against him, after a long career of success. He saw his ship escape crippled, and he ground his teeth as he called her occupants cowards for leaving him in the lurch, being, of course, unaware that the retreat was due to his lieutenant, Abram Mazzard, while when she returned through the determined action of Jack, it came too late, for Abel Dell, otherwise Commodore Junk, was acting as warning to pirates, his last voyage being over. The heat seemed to increase on that torrid day till nightfall, when clouds gathered, and the flickering lightning flashed out and illumined the long banks of vapour, displaying their fantastic shapes, to be directly after reflected from the surface of the barely rippled sea. "Hadn't we better give up for a bit? Storm may pass before morning," whispered the thick-set figure standing close by the wheel. "No, Bart; we must go to-night," was the reply. "Is all ready?" "Ay, ready enough; but I don't like the job." "Give up, then, and let Dinny come." "Did you ever know me give up?" growled Bart. "'Tain't that: it's leaving the ship. Black Mazzard ar'n't to be trusted." "What! Pish! he dare do nothing." "Not while you're here, my lad. It's when you're gone that I feel scared." "You think--" "I think he's trying to get the men over to his side, and some on 'em hold with him." Jack remained thoughtful for a few minutes. "It is only lightning, Bart. There'll be no storm. We can get what we want done in six hours at the longest, and he can do nothing in that time--he will do nothing in that time if you put a couple of bottles of rum within his reach." Bart uttered a low, chuckling laugh. "That's what I have done," he said. "Then we're safe enough. Where's Dinny?" "Forward, along of Dick." "Tell them to keep a sharp look-out while we're gone, and to be on the watch for the boat." Half an hour later, when the schooner was deemed to be near enough for the purpose, an anchor was lowered down, to take fast hold directly in the shallow bottom, a boat was lowered, into which Jack and Bart stepped, the former shipping the little rudder, and Bart stepping a short mast and hauling up a big sail, when the soft sea-breeze sent them gliding swiftly along. "He was asleep in the cabin," said Bart. "Soon be yonder if it holds like this. Do you feel up to it, my lad, as if you could venter?" "Yes," said Jack, sternly. "But it's a wicked job, my lad, and more fit for men." "I've thought all that out, Bart," was the reply. "I know. It is my duty, and I shall do it. Are the pistols loaded?" "Trust me for that," growled Bart. "They're loaded enough, and the cutlashes has edges like razors. So has my axe." "Have you the tools?" "Everything, my lad. Trust me for that." "I do trust you, Bart, always." "And how are we to find our way back to the schooner in the dark?"