He was soon upon the roof, and here he stood a few moments and looked keenly about.
The voices of his men came to him from the ground below. They had left their concealment, and the lightness of their tones told him that all danger was past.
As his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, the dim starlight revealed to him the outlines of a form crouching behind the great chimney not far away.
"Joane!" he called softly, suspecting who it might be.
She arose and came to him, and he heard her laughing to herself.
"What camest thou up here for?" he demanded, speaking quite sharply.
"Joane shoot pirate captain," she answered, still laughing. "Heap scare 'em—no know where shot come from—all run away to ship."
And so it proved. The marauders, having received a very different reception from the one they had expected, were utterly discomfited when an unseen enemy—in the person of Joane and her blunderbuss—scattered a mighty charge of slugs and bullets in their midst. Their leader was struck in the arm, and fearing they had fallen into an ambuscade from which it would be difficult to escape, he shouted to his men that he was wounded, and bade them fly to the ship.
This was the last of the raids that had so annoyed the colonists, and thenceforth they were free from such molestation.
John Devereux's days passed on, full of peace and pleasantness, until he died at a ripe old age, respected and loved by all his fellow-townsmen, and mourned deeply by the faithful wife who did not long survive him.