Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/190

Again some of them laughed, but in a mean way, for he had cowed them by his show of violence and they feared more than ever that subtle spirit which over-leaped their understanding.

"Listen, then, my hearts of gold: we will come about and sail back. We will lie tonight by the very town that last night we stormed. We will seek it out as a harbour of refuge. We will tell them a tale of meeting pirates who captured our shallop and part of our men. We will give them such a story that they will think we have met the very men they themselves last night beat off, and will welcome us with open arms to succour our distress. Who knows but that we can then take them by assault? Or if for the time they are too strong for us, we will mark well the approaches and the defenses, and some night we will again come back.”

The idea caught their fancy, and though a few cried nay and whispered that it was the sheerest madness yet, more cried yea and argued there was little risk, for if worst should come to worst, they could turn tail and run as run they had before. As they talked, they forgot their many woes and whispered about that none but the Old One would ever think of such a scheme.

Harry Malcolm and the Old One went off by themselves and put their heads together and conversed secretly, and throughout the ship there was a great buzz of voices. Only Jacob, who sat in his corner and watched now one and now another, and Philip Marsham, who watched Jacob, kept silence amidst the hubble-bubble.

So they wore ship, and returning along the palm-grown shores, came again at the end of the afternoon into sight of the flat mountain they had seen first by