This was none other than the captain of the schooner which had visited the island in search of the murderers, and who gave the information leading to their rescue.
"I was jes' thinkin' I'd run across the shoals an' see how you was gettin' on," he said, after a hearty greeting; "but I reckoned you had the steamer patched up before I got back from the States."
Joe related briefly their misadventures on the key, and also the particulars of the rescue, concluding by asking if the red-nosed man and his companions had been captured.
"I'm mighty glad that what we did in Savannah brought your friends on. I'd been blamin' myself for not stoppin' here when we come back; but as things turned out, a delay of two hours would 'a' given them villains the chance of showin' us their heels."
"Then you caught 'em?" Bob asked eagerly.
"That's jes' what we did, an' no mistake, though it was a close shave. We was comin' down past Egg Key, with a full breeze, when I saw a yawl edgin' inshore, like as if her crew wanted to get out of sight. None of us expected that gang was aboard, knowin' as how they'd stole your brig; but I thought it wouldn't do any harm to cut in between them and the land. Two hours later an' they'd 'a' been on the shoals, where we couldn't follow."
"Did they show fight?" Bob asked.
"They attempted to, but we was fixed for jes' sich a crowd. When we hove-to not fifty yards off, an' showed the muzzles of half a dozen rifles, every one of 'em quieted down like lambs. We clapped irons on the gang, an' next day they were here in jail. It was hard work to prove the murder on 'em, although everybody knew they did it. They were sentenced yesterday to twenty years' imprisonment, an' us who live around here feel a good deal more easy in mind, because it wasn't safe for a man to travel very far alone while they were free."
Then the captain insisted on the boys going with him to the coral-reefs, where the spongers were at work, and a very pleasant afternoon did they spend.
There were to be seen, by aid of a glass, sponges of all varieties, from the "sheep's wool" and "velvet" to the bright scarlet "gloves," which grow in the shape of huge hands, and owe their peculiar color to the insects which build them. Reef-sponges, yet covered with their manufacturers and black as a coal; wire sponges, and gray ones, fashioned in the form of a cup; sponges of all shapes and hues, until the shoal looked like a garden of brilliantly-colored flowers which had been suddenly inundated.