Tom did not answer.
“I see you don’t. Look here, Tom; do you want to know what I’m beginning to think? It’s this,—that he don’t intend to let a man leave this ship, if he can’t bring her to Key West!”
“For God’s sake, don’t breathe a word of that in the men’s hearing, Jack. You can’t believe what you say.”
“What did Captain Sedgwick do last November?”
Tom did not answer; he knew that story only too well. Captain Sedgwick, of the privateersman Mirabel, had fallen in with a British cruiser off Barnegat; had been crippled by her, and had blown up his ship and all hands on board, so that she might not fall into the Englishman’s hands. Three men out of one hundred and eighteen had come off with their lives.
“For heaven’s sake, Jack, don’t breathe a word of this to the crew!” said Tom again, and then he turned away.
As the day wore along, things looked more and more gloomy.
About three o’clock in the afternoon a sound fell on their ears, that thrilled through every man on board. It was the voice of the lookout, roaring,—“Sail ho!”
“Where away?” sang out Jack.
“Two points on the port bow,” came the answer.