“On the 28th of January the glad cry came ringing from the masthead and, straining their eyes, the half dead men saw the faint and hazy outline of land upon the horizon. Then cheer after cheer rose from those thirst-cracked throats, the men forgot their troubles, their hunger, their ceaseless toil, for all recognized the welcome bit of earth as the island of Barbados. “Marvelous indeed had been Ringrose’s navigation. Had he been equipped with a modern sextant, with the latest nautical almanacs and the most perfect chronometer, he could not have done better. By sheer dead reckoning for his longitude, and by his crude instruments to find his latitude, he had won within ten miles of the goal for which he had made—truly an almost incredible piece of seamanship. “Weather-beaten, patched, her rigging frayed and spliced; her masts awry, her sails mended and discolored, with gaping holes in her bulwarks, with the charred marks of fire still upon her hacked-off poop and with her crew more like ghosts than living men, the Blessed Trinity headed for Bridgetown with the frayed and faded British ensign at her peak and Sharp’s red banner with its green and white ribbons at her masthead. “But the homesick, sea-weary buccaneers were not to set foot upon the green shores of Barbados, for within the bay lay a British frigate. Sharp realized that, in the eyes of the law, he and his men were pirates, and so, with clanging pumps, the Trinity swept by the island, while the wondering folk ashore gazed in amazement at this strange ship, this vision that, gaunt and gray and battered, slipped by like a wraith, and to their superstitious minds savored of the Flying Dutchman. But the buccaneers’ ‘most dangerous voyage’ was almost at an end. At Antigua, two days later, Ringrose and thirteen of the men went ashore and secured passage on the Lisbon Merchant for England, while Sharp and the others sailed to Nevis. There the ‘great sea artist and admirable captain,’ as Ringrose calls him, presented his men with the ship and sailed for Bristol. “Thus ended that most memorable voyage, that venture which had taken the buccaneers across Darien, up and down the length of South America twice, and around Cape Horn and back to the Antilles in a captured Spanish galleon. Two years had passed since they had plunged into the jungles of Darien; two years without sight of fellow countrymen or news of home; two years in enemies’ seas and enemies’ country, and welcome indeed was the sight of the verdant British islands and of Englishmen once more.” “What became of Captain Sharp and Ringrose?” asked Jack. “Gosh, that was a wonderful voyage. It ought to be more famous than Morgan’s.”