CHAPTER XX.
A FIGHT.
Now I go on to narrate the tracking of those thieves and pirates, and of what thereby followed.
By midday we were off the islands, with the chase well ahead of us--yet not so far neither as she had been, since we had sailed faster than she this time, in consequence, as we soon learnt, of their having snapped their foremast--and with Negada, or the Drowned Island, so called because 'tis frequently submerged by the tide, lying not a league away.
"I have been here before," says Cromby, "and I doubt their getting ashore. All around lie sand-banks and shoals that require careful navigation. If they run in here we shall fight 'em when we are both aground."
"Then I do pray they will," says I. "It will be best to land, and no chance of escape for either. 'Twill suit us, my lads."
The men answered cheerfully. "So 'twould, and very well!" yet as they so spake we saw that Alderly meant not to enter there.
Then said I, "If it be not here, p'raps 'tis Virgin-Gorda they are for, or Anguilla"--for I, too, had been here before--"yet, 'tis not very like. There are colonists here, and have been since Charles's day."
But another hour showed us that neither were these islands their aim, but, instead, a little long tract of land that, among all the others, is not marked on the chart, but is known among mariners by the name of "Coffin Island," because of its shape. Now, Coffin Island hath on it a mountain, not so very high, yet near to the beach, being inland about a quarter of a mile, and from the mountain's base there runneth down a wood to the sea, with, in it, a channel or river.
This we learnt shortly, though 'tis fitting enough I set it down here.