"The main thing," he had been told by his father, "is to git there. You've a gantlet to run that's thousands o' miles long, and your chances are only jest about even." "I'll make 'em a good deal more'n even!" Vine had replied, and he had sailed away full confidently. Three days after the _Noank_ and the _Killarney_ parted company, there was a great stir in a fishing village on the Irish coast. A strange schooner was tacking into the cove in front of the village, and such a thing as that did not happen every day. All the cabins were emptied at once. Even the babies, of which there seemed to be a large number, were carried to the shore by their mothers that they might not lose this chance to see something. The schooner furled her sails, and dropped her anchor, while her probable or improbable character was undergoing vigorous discussion all along the beach. Not a soul on board the _Noank_, among her crew, at least, could have understood the primitive Erse dialect in which the fisher people told their opinions of her and the boat-loads of men and women that were quickly put out from her toward the shore. More and more extraordinary became the clatter after the passengers were landed and the boats pulled away for their next cargoes. Trip after trip was made, and all the while there was a vast amount of kindly pity expressed, most of it in Erse, but much in Irish-English, for Captain Syme and all his miscellaneous ship's company. Quite an erroneous opinion appeared to prevail that the American pirates had murdered all their captives entirely before landing them. Here they were, now, however, not a hair of their heads injured, and Captain Syme even thanked Captain Avery, the privateersman, for having treated him and his so very well. "We shall find our way to Belfast, sir," he said. "Just how we are to transport them all, I don't know, but the neighboring authorities will take care of that. I shall have them notified at once. You'd better look out for yourself." "All right," laughed Captain Avery, "but I'm less afraid of a constable than I would be of a three-master with two tiers of guns. Not many o' them in shore, I guess." Captain Syme had his hands full, he said, and away he went without uttering aloud the reply that was so near his lips: "Three-master? Yes, you rebel pirate! A seventy-four and you and your schooner within point-blank range!" CHAPTER XVI. IRISH LOYALTY. Captain Avery's boat pulled away toward the _Noank_, and he remarked as he took hold of the tiller ropes:-- "I'm glad to be rid of all that crowd. Now there'll be more room for the rest of us. We can't afford to take prisoners." "They'll report us, sir," said one of the sailors. "They may say we mean to sack Liverpool, for all I care," growled the captain. "I wish we had a supply of fresh provisions, though. We had no time to take in any at Brest."