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“Angel,” he said, “we made a mistake in cutting the ports; we can’t catch anything afloat that sees them, so we’ll have to pass for a peaceable craft until we can drift close enough to board something. I think the brig’ll be back this way, too. Get out some old tarpaulins and cover up the ports. Paint them, if you can, the color of the sides, and you might coil some lines over the rail, as though to dry. Then you can break out cargo and strike the guns down the main-hatch.”

Three days later, with Cape St. Roque a black line to the westward, a round shot across her bows brought the old vessel–minus the black emblem now, and outwardly respectable–up to the wind, with maintopsail aback, while Captain Swarth and a dozen of his men–equally respectable in the nondescript rig of the merchant sailor–watched the approach of an English brig of war. Mr. Todd and the rest of the crew were below hatches with the guns.

The brig came down the wind like a graceful bird–a splendid craft, black, shiny, and shipshape, five guns to a side, brass-bound officers on her quarter-deck, blue-jackets darting about her white deck and up aloft, a homeward-bound pennant trailing from her main-truck, and at her gaff-end a British ensign as large as her mainroyal. Captain Swarth lazily hoisted the English flag to the bark’s gaff, and, as the brig rounded to on his weather beam, he pointed to it; but his dark eyes sparkled enviously as he viewed the craft whose government’s protection he appealed to.

“Bark ahoy!” came a voice through a trumpet. “What bark is that?”

Captain Swarth swung himself into the mizzen-rigging and answered through his hands with an excellent cockney accent: “Tryde Wind o’ Lunnon, Cappen Quirk, fifty-one dyes out fro’ Liverpool, bound to Callao, gen’ral cargo.”

“You were not heading for the Horn.”

“Hi’m a-leakin’ badly. Hi’m a-goin’ to myke the coast to careen. D’ye happen to know a good place?”

An officer left the group and returned with what Captain Swarth knew was a chart, which a few of them studied, while their captain hailed again:

“See anything more of that pirate brig the other day?”

“What! a pirate? Be ‘e a pirate?” answered Captain Swarth, in agitated tones. “Be that you a-chasin’ of ‘im? Nao, hi seed nothink of ‘im arter the fog shut ‘im out.”

The captain conferred with his officers a moment, then called:

“We are going in to careen ourselves. That fellow struck us on the water-line. We are homeward bound, and Rio’s too far to run back. Follow us in; but if you lose sight of us, it’s a small bay, latitude nine fifty-one forty south, rocks to the north, lowland to the south, good water at the entrance, and a fine beach. Look out for the brig. It’s Swarth and his gang. Good morning.”

“Aye, that hi will. Thank ye. Good marnin’.”

In three hours the brig was a speck under the rising land ahead; in another, she was out of sight; but before this Captain Swarth and his crew had held a long conference, which resulted in sail being shortened, though the man at the wheel was given a straight course to the bay described by the English captain.

Late on the following afternoon the old bark blundered into this bay–a rippling sheet of water, bag-shaped, and bordered on all sides by a sandy beach. Stretching up to the mountainous country was a luxurious forest of palm, laurel, and cactus, bound and intertwined by almost impassable undergrowth, and about half-way from the entrance to the end of the bay was the English brig, moored and slightly careened on the inshore beach. Captain Swarth’s seamanly eye noted certain appearances of the tackles that held her down, which told him that the work was done and she was being slacked upright. “Just in time,” he muttered.

They brought the bark to anchor near the beach, about a half-mile from the brig, furled the canvas, and ran out an anchor astern, with the cable over the taffrail. Heaving on this, they brought the vessel parallel with the shore. So far, good. Guns and cargo lightered ashore, more anchors seaward to keep her off the beach, masthead tackles to the trees to heave her down, and preventer rigging and braces to assist the masts, would have been next in order, but they proceeded no further toward careening. Instead, they lowered the two crazy boats, provisioned and armed them on the in-shore side of the bark, made certain other preparations–and waited.