And then, in weird contrast to the grave words, there came to the ears of the three men a laugh and an incoherent call out of the near darkness. It was as though the blade of Hugh’s oar had spoken. In amazement the men ceased rowing and gazed toward the black stern, from whose invisible water-line the sound had undoubtedly come. All steerage of the cock-boat being momentarily neglected, she swung round until a wave, catching her abeam, with all but disastrous results, washed her yet nearer to the grim hull. “Have a care!” cried the voice; “hold off!” And the rowers saw a dark thing bobbing up and down close to the ship. In another moment a man, grasping the end of a long rope in his hand, was clambering, with the aid of his comrades, into the small boat. “Did ye not see,” he said, immediately assisting at one of the oars, “that I grabbed a hawser as I jumped? ’Twas made fast, thank the Lord, somewhere amidships, and here have I been dangling out behind as comfortable as can be—” but his words belied him, for, even with the assertion on his lips, his last remaining strength failed suddenly, and the inimitable Roger Prat fell back senseless. “To the fly-boat—quick!” said Vytal. The cockle-shell was now but a dancing shadow, only a little darker than the sea to those who looked down on it from the _Admiral’s_ stern far above. Yet in the eyes of one man, at least, that riotous black spot was a thing by all means to be avoided. “Simon, it is the solution of our problem. That man you say is John Vytal, and, I add, the most cursed mischief-maker under heaven. Had I known they were coming, he and his slavish crew, we might have been driven to no such pass.” The speaker lowered his voice and went on as he had begun, in the Spanish language. “But the chance is ours—yours.” “How mine?” The question issued with a shivering sound from the other’s teeth. “Let me see. One thousand crowns,” returned St. Magil, still leaning over the bulwark to gaze down like an evil buzzard on the bobbing shadow beneath him, “and another thousand—and, if it must be, yet another thousand.” He turned, smiling, to note the effect of his offer. “All this if you leave that insignificant cock-boat behind us, and it comes not safe to Virginia.” “It is impossible.” “Wherefore?” “Captain Vytal is one of the governor’s assistants. The desertion will be reported, and I, Sir Walter, answerable to the lords of her Majesty’s most honorable privy council.” “Most honorable idiots!” exclaimed the other. “’Tis easily explained. They are lost—we have waited—we cannot find them—where are they? I see no sign whatever of the boat,” and, smiling yet more blandly, he turned his back to the bulwark. “It is as simple as that—just turn your back.” “Before God, I will not!” and Simon started away, as if he would end the matter there and then. “You find no difficulty in forsaking the fly-boat,” sneered St. Magil.