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and at break of day they kedged the ship into a cove that might have been a dock, so straight were the shores and so deep the water.
"Mind you, Ned,” or “Mind you, Hal, the night we landed on Hispaniola?" the men from the Blue Friggat were saying. And "’T was thou at my side when we stole down through the palms and bottled the garrison in the little fort.” And “Ah, what wine we got that night!”
“Yea, and how drunk we got! So that Martin Barwick was of a mind to go fight a duel with the captain of the soldiers. And then they burst out and drove us all away, and there was an end of our taking towns for a long, long while.”
“I will have you know that I was no drunker than any man else,” Martin snarled, and they laughed uproariously.
“Come,” cried another, ‘‘since we have laid our ship in her chosen berth, let us sleep while the idlers watch. We shall be off in the cool of the afternoon.”
“Nay, in the morning!”
“Afternoon or morning matters little," said old Jacob thickly, in the corner where he sat watching all the men. “The hour is near when we shall lay in the hold a goodly cargo. I know well this town. We need only find two more such towns to get the money to keep us the rest of our lives like so many dukes, each of us in a great house in England, with a park full of deer, and the prettiest tavern wenches from all the country round to serve us in the kitchen.”
That day, while the men slept in such cool places as they could find, the cook and the carpenter stood watch; and a very good watch they kept, for they were pru-