CHAPTER VI.
THE GOLDEN GALLEON.
With his seaman's knife drawn ready for action—the badly-scared sailor rushed out on to the deck prepared to sell his existence dearly. To his amazement the deck was empty of all life, however.
Suddenly the hoarse cry sounded again, and this time he located its source correctly. Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak—the sound that had so startled him at its first utterance.
"Ah, you old death bird, so you think you are going to get me, do you?" shouted the indignant castaway, as the bird looked at him with unpleasant anticipation.
"Well, you're not. Not if I have to shoot you."
With a heavy flop of its wings the carrion bird soared slowly away toward the west as the sailor fairly shouted his defiance.
"Ah, my fine fellow," cried Bill to himself, "you have given me renewed hope. I know that birds of your feather are good strong flyers, but you've got to light somewhere. I judge from the fact that you came visiting here that I can't be more than two hundred miles from land—maybe not so much."
The thought was a cheering one and as the sailor, having filled his pockets with doubloons and other coins, and given the dead men a sea-burial by consigning them to the deep, sculled slowly back to the Eleanor Jones, his mind was busy with plans of escape.
Now it chanced that among the cargo carried by the barque was a small launch intended for the use of a plantation owner in South America. Bill recollected it with peculiar vividness on account of the peculiar shape of its propeller, which he could see through the crate that surrounded it when it was hoisted on board. He had asked the manufacturer's representative, who had superintended the loading of the motorboat at Bath, why the wheel was shaped in such a queer way. He recollected the answer now with joy, for he had conceived a daring plan.