Now, Bowen, between the two appropriated vessels, very likely gathered in some thirty men, all well-seasoned sailors. We know the names of only two of these honest tars to whom this vivid change of circumstance occurred; Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland. Some of these captives accepted the fate of the sea and even counted themselves among the pirates; others, naturally, found the situation not to their liking and stood by for an opportunity to escape. It was all one to their swaggering captors, whether a man liked it or not; a sailor he was and sail that ship he should. None of that topmast business for the bold pirate boys; in a jam they might lend a hand at working the vessel, but ordinarily they insisted that fighting was their specialty and avoided the rope and the tar bucket as quite beneath their dignity. But they were fair in their way, for when it came to a fight they did not call on the shellbacks for help; that too would have been essentially undignified for a master pirate. This gang of Bowen stood in a rough relation to the sailors aboard as the marines do to a war vessel. Many ships, of course, were completely manned by confessed pirates, and when that was so they had to do sailor work, but whenever they could they were great little chaps for pressing men aboard especially to do the ship’s chores. So the _Speedy Return_ being happily in their possession, the pirates lay back under the awnings and drank copiously of arrack, the universal intoxicant of the East Indies, the while their bold chieftain drove his keel along for joyful fights and glorious plunder. Swinging smartly around the northern nose of Madagascar, and shooting westerly, Bowen set the course for the Comoro Islands, some three hundred and fifty miles northwest of Madagascar and two hundred miles east of the coast of Africa. Apparently John was going to lose no time in his business, for the Comoros would be the nearest likely place to pick up a prize; no waiting until he made the distant littoral of India, you notice. His ultimate destination was Rajapore, way up in what is now called the Bombay presidency, but he did not care to go as the crow flies, but rather as the vulture does; pausing for anything that might be carrion.