"She looks most damnably familiar," was the reluctant admission. "A great press of sail,—it fooled me into thinking her Stede Bonnet's brig."
Gloomily they waited until the black line of the hull was visible whenever the raft lifted on the back of a wave. This was enough for Joe. He recognized the graceful shear of the flush deck which had been extended fore and aft to make room for a heavier main battery. Even at a distance, a sailor's eye could read other signs that marked this ship as the Revenge.
"The devil looks after his own," angrily exclaimed Joe. "I'd ha' wagered my last ducat that she was whirled away to founder. Blackbeard boasts of his compact with Satan. I believe it's true."
"Shall we pull down our mast and pray that he passes the raft as a piece of wreckage?" implored Jack.
Mustering his wits to meet this new crisis, Joe Hawkridge cried impatiently:
"No, no, boy! This way death is sure, and most discomfortin'. If it suits Blackbeard's whim to pick us up, there is a chance,—a chance, I say, but make one slip and he will run us through with his own hand."
"We must arrange our tale of the wreck, Joe, to match without flaw. Quick! What have we to say?"
"A task for a scholar, this," grinned the sea urchin. "If it's not well learned, we'll taste worse'n a flogging. Where be his prize crew of pirates, asketh Blackbeard. Answer me that, Jack."
"The Plymouth Adventure was driven upon a shoal and lost," glibly affirmed the other lad who had rallied to play at this hazardous game. "Her boats were stove up. We left the pirates building a raft for themselves and trusted ourselves to this poor contrivance, hoping to gain the coast."