In the dead of night the sloop was cast off, and the pirates even pilfered all the candles to make matters as uncomfortable as possible. Two boys of the sloop’s crew had been left on board, one of them an infant of eight years, and it may have accorded with the piratical style of humor to call this a complement. The eight-year-old urchin was perhaps a cabin-boy; no other information is vouchsafed concerning him. At any rate, he must have turned to like a little man, for he took the wheel while the captain and the elder boy pumped to clear the leaky vessel of water. Fairly confident that she would stay afloat, they took stock at daylight, and found that the pirates had overlooked a few crumbs of bread, ten gallons of rum, a little rice, and some flour, with a two-gallon jug of water. They were unable to kindle a fire because the jocular pirates had carried off the flint and steel, and so they lived on raw flour and rice and drank rum after the water gave out. Three days’ hard labor sufficed to patch up a sail that pulled the sloop along when the wind blew hard enough. Rain fell and gave them a little more water before they died of thirst. A shark was caught when the food had all been eaten and they lived for three weeks before sighting land again. This was the Isle of St. Anthony, in the Cape Verd group, and the elder boy begged to be allowed to go ashore in the boat and look for water. He pulled away after sunset and, with the anchor down, Captain Roberts dragged himself into the cabin and was instantly asleep. Rousing out at midnight, there was no sign of the boat and, to his dismay, he discovered that the sloop had drifted almost out of sight of land with a strong night wind. His crew now consisted of the eight-year-old mite of a sailor lad, but they swung on the pump together and tugged at the windlass until the anchor was hove short. They tended the rag of sail, and a kindly breeze slowly wafted them back toward the island until they were able to drop the mud-hook in a sandy bay with a good holding-ground. Captain Roberts was a stalwart man, and hats off to his eight-year-old crew! The other boy who had rowed ashore was anxiously looking for the vessel, and he appeared aboard with a gang of negroes whom he had hired to work her into the nearest port. They brought food and water with them, and affairs seemed to have taken an auspicious turn, but during the first night out the sail split from top to bottom. There was no other canvas to set, and the negroes promptly tumbled into the boat and made for the island. The voyage appealed to their simple intellects as very much of a failure. Captain Roberts sighed, and resumed the interminable task of finding a haven for his helpless sloop. His two boys did what they could, but they were completely worn out and unable to help rig up another sail of bits of awning, tarpaulins, and so on, and bend it to the spars.