Early after breakfast the lurkers noticed what was evidently the captain of the _Speedy Return_, accompanied by a group of men, come ashore and set off through the woods to the neighboring villages, evidently in the transaction of their traffic in human beings. The day burned to high noon and high noon waned towards evening, and still the cautious Bowen, not risking a fizzle in this his great and long-sought opportunity, held his hounds in the leash. Quite late in the afternoon, when it was reasonably certain the captain had gone for a considerable time, and when the remnant of the crews of the two ships were scattered, some about the town and others dozing on the hot decks, John Bowen and his four aides stepped from the brush, strode past the thatched native huts and out on the dock. They ran up the ladder and were on the deck of the _Speedy Return_. “Ho, mate,” called Bowen, grinning genially to what was evidently the ship’s cook, carrying a butcher knife in one hand and a leg of a sheep in the other, “who’s the master of this ship?” “Cap’n Rab Drummond, frae Edinburgh,” burred the cook, “and who be ye, mon?” “Oh, we’re nobody; just come aboard, looking to buy a bit of breadstuff and tobacco, if ye’ve such to spare.” There were not more than a dozen men aboard, according to Bowen’s swift calculation. Over on the _Content_, a few yards away, there appeared still fewer. The hour had struck. Bowen drew a pistol from the arsenal of his sash and thrust it against the full girth of the cook. “Go on to your cookhouse, my lad,” he commanded. “You’re going to have a few friends for supper.” Thus the chef received notice of the change of management. He took it dully and obediently; anything may happen when one goes so far from Glasgie. Sharp and shrill the signal whistle beat echoingly from the cliffs of the Cape to the heights above the town, and with a terrifying shout, the rest of Bowen’s men hurled themselves over the bulwarks of both the _Speedy Return_ and the _Content_. The gang that boarded the latter had a definitely prescribed job to do and expeditiously they did it. First of all, they ran the gaping sailors off her decks and on to those of the _Speedy Return_; then, hastening back, they smeared the decks of the _Content_ with pitch, set a train to the small powder magazine, and as the thick brown-black clouds of smoke rolled sluggishly over the sides, they fled, whooping as demons may be supposed to whoop at the mouth of the Inferno, for the _Speedy Return_. Her sides they clutched even as she moved away in tow of the ship’s boats, out into the bay, where she picked up a helping breeze; where her hastily hoisted sails began to tauten and whence she began quite prettily to glide out into the wide, the welcome ocean. John Bowen was on a quarter-deck again; it mattered to him little who claimed that same quarterdeck; he was on it and the quartermaster at the whipstaff swung the helm to this side and that, in obedience to his orders.