Never did the walls of that cabin ring with lustier shouts than when those men ended with, “Ra, Ra, Ra! Ruth, Ruth, Ruth! Betty! Betty! Betty!”
“And now for the feast!” exclaimed the Chief. “Fourteen men on a dead man’s chest. Buckets of blood! There never was a pirate crew but liked their victuals. Ho! You scullions, hove to with the viands!”
All this talk made Betty shudder, but Ruth only sat and stared.
They were hungry enough after the long row across the bay and without asking further questions they accepted the cold chicken, coffee, doughnuts and huge wedges of pie and did full justice to all.
A half hour later, as the pirate crew joined ringing notes of a pirate chanty ending with a rousing, “Heave ho, Ladies, Heave ho!” the girls pushed their punt away from the towering hull of the Black Gull and went rowing away into the night.
Ruth’s arms had swung in rhythmic motion for a full ten minutes before she spoke. Then dropping her oars, she said in a deep, low tone,
“Of all the things I ever heard of, that beats ’em.”
“I thought,” said Betty, solemnly, “that I had seen strange things, but that beats them all.”
“And somehow,” Ruth said, still more soberly, “I have a feeling that this is the beginning of something very big and mysterious, and perhaps awfully dangerous.”
“That is just the way I feel about it,” said Betty, with a shudder.