This evening he went with Morton from place to place, watching him as he drank rum, listening to his talk, and sometimes joining in what was said. The town, as has been said, was full of the news of the pirates’ return and of the rich prize they had made, and Morton was welcomed everywhere. He was drinking very freely, and, as he went from house to house, he talked ever more and more openly about the circumstances of the capture of the prize. It almost seemed to Jack as though he himself had part and parcel in it all by virtue of being a member of the pirate’s household. Ordinarily he would have taken great delight in listening to what was said and in saying his say concerning it, but now a strong desire for her presence hung continually over him, urging him almost uncomfortably to get back home again. So it was that he did not stay very long up in the town, but returned before the night had altogether fallen, and while a pallid light still lingered in the western sky, making it faintly luminous. As he rowed slowly down the smooth stretch of water, solitary and alone, the joy of that strong yearning to be near her again seemed to fill everything, and, as he listened absently to the rhythmic chugging jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and as he looked out astern at the long, trailing, oily wake that the boat left behind it along the glassy smoothness of the water, he thought of her, bearing strongly upon the thought, and holding it close to him. He built up incoherent plans for comforting her, for helping her. He had thought a score of times that day about the possibility of helping her to escape, and now in the dusk and the solitude the disjointed thoughts began to assume almost the vividness of reality, and once or twice he thrilled with a quick, keen, nervous pang as though he were upon the eve of actually fulfilling some such determination. These vague plans did not take any definite shape excepting that he said to himself that he might carry her back home as she had been brought thither, and maybe that he might take the big yawl-boat that the pirates had brought back with them in the tow of the sloop, and which now again lay drawn up on the beach near to the landing wharf. Beyond this he had not thought of any plan for taking her away, but only dwelt upon the delight of being with her for such a long time and of taking care of her. His mind was full of such thoughts as he ran the skiff upon the half sandy, half muddy strip of beach beside the landing wharf, driving the bow of the boat far up on the shore with two or three quick pulls of the oar, and the desire for her presence was so strong upon him that when he reached the house he leaned the oars against the side of the wooden wall, and went around to the further end of the building, where the window of her room opened out to the westward.