There was no answer, and no light visible from where they lay for the next three hours, waiting patiently till the first faint streak of dawn should show them the waiting vessel, and their ghastly burden could be carried aboard ready for a sailor’s grave.
“It is a trick, Bart,” said Jack at last, as he glanced at their freight lying forward beneath a spare sail.
“Ay, I felt it, my lad,” said Bart, frowning. “I felt it last night. Black Mazzard hain’t the man to leave alone; and what’s a couple o’ bottles o’ rum to such as he?”
“The villain—the coward!” cried Jack, bitterly. “At a time like this!”
“Ay, it’s a bad time, my lad,” said Bart, “but we’ve done our work, poor chap; and the sea’s the sea, whether it’s off a boat or a schooner. You mean that, don’t you, now?”
“No,” said Jack, fiercely, as he pointed to the back-fins of a couple of sharks.
“Ugh!” ejaculated Bart. “What, then, my lad?”
“To find the schooner first, and if not, to make for one of the little islands, where we’ll land.”
“Little more to the west, my lad,” said Bart, after they had been sailing in silence for some time. “You’ll land at the Sandy Key, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Jack, shortly, as he sat there with eyes fixed and frowning brow.