"I be needed above water to handle the musket if Blackbeard sneaks back to bang at us with his pistols," was the evasive reply. The mention of the corpse had given old Trimble a distaste for the task. To his petulant question, Bill Saxby protested that he couldn't swim a blessed stroke and he sensibly added:
"What if you did get a rope's end belayed to a handle of the chest? Even if the strain didn't part the line, we couldn't heave away in this tipsy canoe. And I am blamed certain we can't drag the chest ashore lackin' purchase and tackles."
"The smell o' treasure warps my judgment," grumpily confessed Trimble Rogers. "We ain't properly rigged to h'ist that chest from where she lays, and that's the fact."
"Give us the gear and we'd have it out and cracked open as pretty as you please," said Bill. "Set up a couple o' spars for shears, stay 'em from the bank, rig double blocks, and grapplin' irons for a diver to work with——"
"Which is exactly what Cap'n Teach will be doin' of when he finds his ship again," lamented the buccaneer.
"He will be some time findin' his ship afoot," grimly chuckled Bill. "We have naught to smash his boat with, but we'll just take it along with us."
"If we make haste to report to Captain Stede Bonnet," spoke up Jack Cockrell, "he may make sail in time to give Blackbeard other things to think on than this treasure chest. And it is my notion that the need of fitting the Revenge for action is too urgent to spare a crew to attempt this errand."
"We shall have it yet," cried Trimble, much consoled. "And Stede Bonnet'll blithely furnish the men and gear. For a mere babe, Master Cockrell, ye leak wisdom like a colander. Our duty is to tarry no longer at this mad business."
"The first sound word I've heard out of the old barnacle, eh, Jack?" said Bill Saxby. "We must be out of this swamp by night and layin' a course for Cap'n Bonnet and the Royal James."
"Whilst you empty Blackbeard's boat of water so we can tow it, let me make a rude chart," was Jack's happy idea. "Some mishap or other may overtake us ere we get the chance to seek the treasure again. And our own memory of this pest-hole of a swamp may trick us."