“I see you don’t. Look here, Tom; do you want to know what I’m beginning to think? It’s this,—_that he don’t intend to let a man leave this ship, if he can’t bring her to Key West!_” “For God’s sake, don’t breathe a word of that in the men’s hearing, Jack. You can’t believe what you say.” “What did Captain Sedgwick do last November?” Tom did not answer; he knew that story only too well. Captain Sedgwick, of the privateersman _Mirabel_, had fallen in with a British cruiser off Barnegat; had been crippled by her, and had blown up his ship and all hands on board, so that she might not fall into the Englishman’s hands. Three men out of one hundred and eighteen had come off with their lives. “For heaven’s sake, Jack, don’t breathe a word of this to the crew!” said Tom again, and then he turned away. As the day wore along, things looked more and more gloomy. About three o’clock in the afternoon a sound fell on their ears, that thrilled through every man on board. It was the voice of the lookout, roaring,—“Sail ho!” “Where away?” sang out Jack. “Two points on the port bow,” came the answer. Most of the crew ran to the side of the vessel, as did the men at the brakes. Tom did not order them back, for he saw that there would be no use in doing so. As the day had worn along, the discipline of the ship had begun to go pretty much to pieces, and there had been great difficulty in keeping the men at the brakes. I think that they, like Jack and Tom, had gotten a notion that the ship was doomed, for, though they worked when they were ordered, it was in a dull, stolid way, as though they had no interest in it one way or another. Tom had tried to do all that lay in him to keep them going, and I think that it was only through his urging that they were kept at it at all. So now they all left the pumps and ran to the side of the vessel to get a look at the sail. At first it was seen like a flickering speck in the dull, grey distance, but it presently rose higher and higher as the _Nancy Hazlewood_ held on her course. Jack Baldwin was on the poop when the vessel was first sighted; he did not lose a moment, but went straightway and reported it to the captain, who presently came upon deck from his cabin. He had wound a red scarf about his waist, and had thrust a brace of large pistols in it. There was an odd look about him, that at first led Tom to think that he had been drinking, but he soon found that he was wrong. Whatever it was that had led him to rig himself up in this style, it was not drink.