Part 7 (2/2)
”One word more, boys,” said the old man, just as the pirate came round under the stern
”Noatch every movement I make, and be ready to jump the , the pirate luffed under the fisherman's lee-quarter, and, in a raced with the presence of a dozen as savage-looking mortals as eyes ever rested upon
”Are you the captain of this vessel,” demanded the leader of the boarders, as he approached the old o?”
”Machinery for ingines”
”Nothing else?” asked the pirate with a searching look
At this ht what looked like a sail off to the southward and eastward, but no sign betrayed the discovery, and, while a brilliant idea shot through his ly replied:
”Well, there is a leetle so else”
”Ha! and what is it?”
”Why, sir, perhaps I hadn't ought to tell,” said Captain Spinnet, counterfeiting the iven to ive up You can take any thing else you please, for I s'pose I can't help er, at any rate,” said the pirate; ”but, if you would live ten ot on board, and exactly where it lays”
The sight of the cocked pistol brought the oldtone, he muttered:
”Don't kill ot forty thousand silver dollars nailed up in boxes and stoay under some of the boxes just forward of the cabin bulkhead, but Mr Defoe didn't suspect that any body would have thought of looking for it there”
”Perhaps so,” chuckled the pirate, while his eyes sparkled with delight
And then, turning to his own vessel, he ordered all but three of his men to jump on board the Yankee
In a few moments the pirates had taken off the hatches, and, in their haste to get at the ”silver dollars,” they forgot all else; but not so with Spinnet; he had his wits at work, and no sooner had the last of the villains disappeared below the hatchway, than he turned to his boys
”Now, boys, for our lives Seth, you clap your knife across the fore throat and peak halyards; and you, John, cut the main Be quick now, an'
the moment you've done it, jump aboard the pirate Andrew and Sas; an' then you jump--then we'll walk into them three chaps aboard the clipper _Now for it_”
No sooner were the last words out of the old man's mouth, than his sons did exactly as they had been directed The fore and s cast off at the sa down, our five heroes leaped on board the pirate Theoff, and, before the astonished buccaneers could gain the decks of the fisherth to leeward, sweeping gracefully away before the wind, while the three e were easily secured
”Halloa, there!” shouted Captain Spinnet, as the luckless pirates crowded around the lee gangway of their prize, ”when you find them silver dollars, just let us knoill you?”
Half a dozen pistol shots was all the answer the oldup all sail, he made for the vessel he had discovered, which lay dead to leeward of hie shi+p The clipper cut through the water like a dolphin, and, in a remarkably short space of time, Spinnet luffed up under the shi+p's stern, and explained all that had happened The shi+p proved to be an East India, all told, thirty men on board, twenty of whom at once ju to take the pirate
Before dark, Captain Spinnet was oncea trumpet to his mouth, he shouted:
”Schooner ahoy! Will you quietly surrender yourselves prisoners, if we come on board!”
”Come and try it!” returned the pirate captain, as he brandished his cutlass above his head in a threatening ht to the last