"Wake me when it is time to be drowned," he said. "I know it is my fate." Jim remembered the Spaniard's melancholy of the day before, and laughed heartily, as he promised.
"There are the lights of a vessel," cried Yaquis, who, though silent, was ever on the watch. "Ahead of us to the Southwest."
"You are right," said Jim. The lights were like two faint, moving stars, one aloft and the other below.
"That isn't the Pirate ship," declared Jo. "She wouldn't be showing any light." After a while, the lights of the vessel were suddenly eclipsed, but by the dull light of the moon, now risen, the vessel's bulk could still be made out.
"She has gone into the further straits," said Yaquis, "between the two islands."
A gentle breeze sprang up, but blowing directly toward them, it lent no aid. Before midnight, the westerly breeze had died absolutely down, and in a not very long time, the sea followed suit, leaving a long swell and the rowing became much easier. Nothing occurred to break the monotony for a while. There was the steady grinding of the oars in the row-locks and the lapping of the waves in the gloom, for the moon was now obscured by clouds. Then, of a sudden, the Indian called a halt.
"Do you hear footsteps?" inquired Jim, jocosely.
"A steamer coming, I hear her, no lights. Pull hard." In a minute, even the boys could hear the beat of her engines and saw the occasional flare from her stacks, then a dark form took shape through the night. They pulled lustily for they knew their danger and who it was. How quickly they would be run down, if discovered, and left to drown in the wide strait, when Captain Broom found out their identity. No wonder they pulled.
"Stop now, draw in your oars. Lie down," warned the Indian.
Not a hundred yards to the Eastward came The Sea Eagle and she was on an even line with the boat that lay a black patch on the dark water. If Captain Broom was not on the Bridge they would be safe.