Half trembling, the Englishman scrawled his signature beside those of the others.
“And now, Mr. Beauchier,” went on Conyngham, “is it true that I understand that you own also the vessel which is alongside of us?”
“Yes, and her contents,” was the reply.
“Have you got any ballast for sale—old iron or such like?”
“We have, sir, and also some passengers who are anxious to leave the ship, because they are afraid of the leak which the captain reports she has sprung.”
“Poor people! Poor people!” repeated Conyngham. “I will take them on board for nothing.”
The transfer of the long heavy bundles proved an easy task, as the “passengers” were all of the male sex and insisted upon turning to and helping. In two hours it was all accomplished; the lashings were cut off and the two vessels drifted apart.
It had been agreed that the little Englishman should be put ashore at some obscure French port, the brig being bound now for L’Orient. But as Mr. Bulger stood watching the lugger square away to the north he ground his teeth in impotent despair.
“Pirates, just the same,” he muttered. “Pirates, every one of them.”
At that moment there broke from the masthead of the lugger, not the Jolly Roger, but a big flag with thirteen alternate stripes of red and white. Across it diagonally stretched the writhing coils of a rattlesnake, and on the fourth white bar appeared the printed words, “Don’t tread on me.”