So cleverly had Blackbeard calculated the drift of the boys' raft that a little later in the morning a lookout in the maintop called down:
"Land, ho! Two points off the starboard bow she bears."
"The maintop, ahoy!" shouted Blackbeard. "Can ye see a vessel's spars?"
"'Tis too hazy inshore. But unless my eyes play me tricks, a smudge of smoke arises."
Jack Cockrell nervously confided to Joe:
"That would be Captain Wellsby's campfire on the beach."
"Trust him to douse it," was the easy assurance. "I feel better. Blow me, but I expect to live another day."
"Answer me why," begged Jack. "I am like a palsied old man."
"Well, you know this bit o' coast, how low it sets above the sea. Despite the haze, a man aloft could see a ship's masts and yards before he had a glimpse of land."
"Then the wreck of the Plymouth Adventure has slid off the shoal and gone down, Joe?"