"That's it!" he stormed, "another 'cursed mutiny! That comes of crowding the king's ships with the off-scourings of the merchant service, and jail-birds, and slaves, and picaroons, and 'pressed Yankee rebels. Not one of 'em's fit to be trusted. The king'll lose ships by it! They'd better be all hung!" Meantime, under an almost perilous press of sail for such a wind and so rough a sea, the stanch, swift _Noank_ was dashing along her course. Every minute carried her oceanward, but not all her dangers were behind her. Rapid signalling went on between the British war-ships and their now frightened convoy. The unarmed vessels were hurrying toward their protectors like so many chickens toward a clucking hen. No other incident or accident of any importance occurred to any of them. As hour after hour went by in the darkness of the night, and then in the very chilly morning that followed, an eager, angry, discomforting process of inquiry went forward from ship to ship. Upon which of them had been the mutiny? Had it succeeded? Had it been put down? Did the mutineers take the boats and get away? "Not on this ship, sir," was the altogether uniform response, and all the vessels known to be in company had been accounted for. Not only was it that not one solitary mutineer could be discovered: it also appeared that no such ship as the _Kraken_, of Liverpool, had at any time joined herself to that convoy. "'Pon my soul!" exclaimed the astonished admiral, at last, "this is great! Ponsonby, my dear fellow, the chap that hailed you in the dark must have been the Yankee pirate himself. What do you think?" "I think he got away, sir," calmly replied Captain Ponsonby, of the _Amphitrite_, forty-four. "The rebel rascal has slipped through our fingers in the most audacious manner. Showed pluck, too." "He did!" groaned the admiral. CHAPTER VII. HUNTING THE NOANK.