The captain had declared his intention of setting sail under cover of darkness, so as to escape an attack from a Chilian ship should one offer to dispute his passage.
That afternoon Jack saw Plum to bid him goodbye, feeling sorry to part with his honest friend.
The latter actually cried.
“Hang it, Jack! I’ve a mind to go with you. Think of me in this heathenish country and you among friends and rolling in wealth.”
“All but the wealth, Plum. But I shall be glad to have you go with me.”
“I thank you, Jack, but I mustn’t. I must stay here long enough to get the money to pay up the mortgage on dad’s farm, when I shall skip by the light of the moon. You may not find me here when you come back, Jack, but I wish you well.”
A little after sunset the Peruvian ship moved slowly out of the harbor of San Maceo, Jack watching the land as it receded from sight with a peculiar interest, and his mind ran swiftly back over the eventful time he had passed in that faraway land.
He had given the captain the last pistole he possessed, as he had been obliged to pay him in advance to get him to undertake the task, so he was again penniless. But he had no doubt he would have money enough as soon as he could get home and dispose of his cargo. Over and again he had figured out his profit, if it should prove saleable at the moderate price he had fixed upon it. Is it a wonder his thoughts were in a tumult? Is it strange that he found it difficult to make himself believe that at last after that long waiting, he was really homeward bound?
“How glad they will be to see me!” he thought. “And Jenny! She will not be expecting me. It has been so long since I left. Some of them may be--”
He was interrupted in his meditations by the report of a gun in the distance, and, glancing to the port, he discovered a ship coming up rapidly.