"Ho! ho!" laughed the men, vastly appreciating their leader's joke.
"Now, we be eight, young master captain,—stout fellows, but a small crew for this vessel. You be in our power, you and Haymoss too, for all he be a rare fustilugs; and down a-hold lie Bill Hawk and Luke Fenton, that kept but a ninny-watch, to be sure. Wherefore we be twelve all told, enough for the manage of this craft. Haymoss will not be boatswain, to be sure, nor you captain; I be captain; boatswain is French Michel yonder; but 'ee can take your choice,—help to work this vessel, or walk the plank. Now I will loose your gags, and you and Haymoss can talk the matter out, and when ye've made up your minds we'll unbind 'ee, or tumble 'ee overboard, according."
Left to themselves, Dennis and Turnpenny were not long in deciding on their course of action. They were at present outnumbered; they had to accept the inevitable. Their assistance would be very valuable in the working of the vessel, and Biddle, in spite of his assured bearing, was by no means so confident in his seamanship and skill as he tried to make himself appear. After his treacherous conduct he had no reason to suppose that Turnpenny would lift a finger to make good his deficiencies; on the other hand it was not to the interest of the prisoners that the ship should come to grief through mishandling, and Biddle knew that in extremity Turnpenny's instinct of seamanship would forbid him to hold aloof.
But while Dennis and the mariner agreed that they had no choice but to accept the position with what grace they might, they resolved to bide their time for getting the vessel again under their control and returning to the island.
"My poor comrades and me be parted again," said Amos, with a sigh. "'Tis true it will not be so bad for them upon the island as 'twas for us. But there they be, and there they must bide until we can fetch 'em off."
"And mayhap the Spaniards will land before we can get back to them, and then God help the poor fellows. There is little chance we two can overpower these eight villains; we can but hope on."
Having acquainted Biddle with their decision, they were cast loose, and sat beneath the break of the poop watching their captors' attempts at navigation. The vessel had rounded the easternmost point of the island and was running before a south-south-westerly wind. But it made little progress; as the day wore on the breeze died away, and the island was still in sight as the sun gradually sank in the western sky. The mutineers cast somewhat anxious glances around, as if fearing that the comrades they had betrayed might even now find some means of following them. But as the island gradually faded into the dusk their spirits rose, and having broached one of the few jars of wine which had been left in the cabin, they began to boast of the success of their trick. Biddle even acquainted the prisoners with the manner in which it had been carried out. In the darkness they had surprised the watch on board, and cut the cable mooring the vessel to a tree at the side of the gully; then seven of them had lowered the jolly-boat and in it towed the ship past the shoulder of the cliff until the sails caught the wind and it was carried free of the shore. He told Dennis exultantly that if he had swum out three or four minutes earlier the plot would have been defeated, for only he was then on board, at the helm. But just before Dennis scrambled on board the others had clambered up by the fore chains, and his cry and plunge having been heard, there had been time to arrange for his reception.
The crescent moon, which had somewhat favoured the attack on the fort, had now increased in size, and threw a thin silvery light upon the sea. Biddle, among a little group of his comrades, was still recounting his achievement for the benefit of Dennis and Turnpenny when the look-out shouted that he spied a vessel to windward.
"What care I for a vessel to windward!" cried the man. "We'll give her the slip in the dark. I, Jan Biddle, be captain now; ay, what did Hugh Curder sing t'other day?
Here is a master excelleth in skill,
And our master's mate he is not to seek.