“There’ll not be many men on him, then?”
“No,” I answered, carelessly, well knowing what the scoundrel was thinking of. “Probably a dozen or fifteen at the most.”
Benson had now come on deck, and he, together with Johnson and the few leading men, held a conference as to what they should do about the strange ship ahead. It didn’t take long for them to decide after I gave them to understand the number of men they would probably find in the crew.
“There’ll be no trouble about overhauling him before dark?” asked Benson.
“None in the world,” I answered; “we can go ten fathoms to his one any time.”
“Then hoist the Roger and let him know his time has come,” said the swaggering villain.
Some of the more reckless spirits among the men had made a black flag and had stitched the canvas figures of a skull and cross-bones across its centre. They had never used it, and had made it more out of a spirit of bravado, while trying to kill time, than anything else. In a few moments it flew free and straight from the peak of the monkey-gaff.
The men were almost wild when they found it was decided to take the strange ship. Benson stood on the break of the poop and gave orders for getting things in readiness forward. Then it was as though a pack of wolves had broken loose on the main-deck.
Weapons were gotten out and cleaned. Cutlasses from the Countess of Warwick and sheath-knives from the slop-chest were carefully sharpened. Before the sun had sunk near the horizon, the black hull of the stranger rose above the sea, and the villains were ready to take him.
He was about three miles ahead now and drawing a little to leeward, so there was no trouble about him seeing our flag if he chose to look. I felt that he would be interested in its peculiar colour.