"The 'critter' doesn't seem to be there any longer," assured Gage. "Those two shots must have frightened him away."
"That's right," agreed Bowsprit. "This has been an unlucky stop fer us, mates. Tomlinson is dead, an' Jaggers——"
"I ain't dead, but I'm bleedin', bleedin', bleedin'!" moaned the fellow who had been hit by Frank's arrow. "There's a big tear in my shoulder, an' I'm afeared I've made my last cruise."
"It serves you right," came harshly from the boy leader of the ruffianly crew. "Tomlinson attempted to set himself up as head of this crew—as captain over me. You backed him. All the time, you knew I was the leader in every move we have made."
"And a pretty pass you have led us to!" whined the wounded wretch. "Where's the money you said the captain had stored away? Where's the reward we'd receive for the captain alive and well? We turned mutineers at your instigation, and what have we made of it? We've set the law agin' us, an' here we are. The Bonny Elsie has gone up in smoke——"
"Through the carelessness of a lot of drunken fools!" snarled Gage. "She should not have been burned. But for that, we wouldn't be here now, hiding from officers of the law."
"Well, here we are," growled Ben Bowsprit, "an' shiver my timbers if we seem able to get out of this howlin' swamp! The more we try, the more we seem ter git lost."
"Fo' goodness, be yo' gwine to stan' roun' an' chin, an' chin, an' chin?" demanded Black Tom.
"The fire's out, and we can't be seen," spoke Gage, swiftly, in a low tone. "Get the boats ready. You two are to take the old man in one; I'll take the girl in the other."
"It's the gal you've cared fer all the time," cried Jaggers, madly. "It was for her you led us into this scrape."