"All right! We're coming!" called back the suddenly delighted ex-skipper of the _Spencer_. "What luck this is!" "Now, Captain Keller," said Avery, "we'll search for cash and anything else we want. Are you leakin'?" "No," said the Englishman, "we're tight enough. We were damaged in a gale, that's all. There's one of our convoy, off to looard,--the old _Solway_. She lost a stick, too." "We won't hurt her," said Avery. "What did that old woman yell for?" "Why," said Keller, "one o' those younkers told her you meant to burn the ship and sell her to the Turks. But the best part of our cargo, for your taking, is coming up from the hold." The two grim old salts perfectly understood each other's dry humor, and Keller's orders had been given without waiting for explanations. "Hullo!" said Avery. "Well, yes, I'd say so! There they come! How many of 'em?" "Forty-seven miserable Yankees," said Keller. "The _Solway_ took 'em out of a Baltimore clipper and another rebel boat. She stuck 'em in on us to relieve her own hold. They were to be distributed 'mong the Channel fleet, maybe. You may have 'em all. It's a kind of fair trade, I'd say." At that moment the two ships were ringing with cheers. The _Spencer_ Englishmen, the short-handed crew of the _Sinclair_, and, most uproariously of all, the liberated American sailors, who were pouring up from the hold, let out all the voices they had. It was an extraordinary scene to take place on the deck of a vessel just captured by bloodthirsty privateers. The women and children ceased their crying, and then the men passengers came forward to find out what was the matter. Ten words of explanation were given, and then even they were laughing merrily. The dreaded pirate schooner had only brought the much needed supply of sailors, and there was no real harm in her. A search below for cash and other valuables of a quickly movable character was going forward with all haste, nevertheless, while the liberated tars of both nations transferred themselves and their effects to either vessel. "Not much cash," said Captain Avery, "but I've found a couple of extra compasses and a prime chronometer that I wanted. The prisoners are the best o' this prize, and how I'm to stow 'em and quarter 'em, I don't exactly know. We must steer straight for Brest, I think." "Captain," said Guert, coming to him a little anxiously, "off to looard! Boats!" The captain was startled. "Boats? From the seventy-four?" he exclaimed. "That means mischief! All hands on board the _Noank_! Call 'em up from below! Tally! Don't miss a man! Drop all you can't carry!" The skipper of the _Sinclair_ was looking contemptuously at his bewildered passengers. "The whimperingest lot I ever sailed with," he remarked of them; and then he sang out, to be heard by all: "Captain Avery! Did you say you were going to scuttle my ship, or set her afire?"