‘Take charge of the schooner, then,’ quoth the captain.
‘Unloose my arms,’ answered Bedloe. ‘I ought to have as good a chance as the others.’
The captain hesitated.
‘Wounds, man!’ cried the dwarf; ‘I give you my word of honour I am not going to take the schooner from you.’
The cool impudence of the fellow was amusing; and so, stepping forward, I cut the rope-yarns which bound him.
‘Now, then,’ quoth he to Bristol Tom and the captain, both of whom stood by the tiller, ‘look sharp for the pilot’s orders.’
The Manxman stepped to the weather-beam, looked earnestly to windward and then aloft; after which he walked back whistling. The schooner was labouring heavily upon the swells, and the sky getting wilder and wilder.
All at once, the man at the mast-head shouted—‘A sail!’
We were all of us startled at the news.
‘Not the Spanish frigate, Johnson?’ said I.