Captain Scarrow heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin.  Then, as he strained at his bonds, he heard their footsteps pass up the companion and along the quarter-deck to where the dinghy hung in the stern.  Then, still struggling and writhing, he heard the creak of the falls and the splash of the boat in the water.  In a mad fury he tore and dragged at his ropes, until at last, with flayed wrists and ankles, he rolled from the table, sprang over the dead mate, kicked his way through the closed door, and rushed hatless on to the deck.

“Ahoy!  Peterson, Armitage, Wilson!” he screamed.  “Cutlasses and pistols!  Clear away the long-boat!  Clear away the gig!  Sharkey, the pirate, is in yonder dinghy.  Whistle up the larboard watch, bo’sun, and tumble into the boats, all hands.”

Down splashed the long-boat and down splashed the gig, but in an instant the coxswains and crews were swarming up the falls on to the deck once more.

“The boats are scuttled!” they cried.  “They are leaking like a sieve.”

The captain gave a bitter curse.  He had been beaten and outwitted at every point.  Above was a cloudless, starlit sky, with neither wind nor the promise of it.  The sails flapped idly in the moonlight.  Far away lay a fishing-smack, with the men clustering over their net.  Close to them was the little dinghy, dipping and lifting over the shining swell.

“They are dead men!” cried the captain.  “A shout all together, boys, to warn them of their danger.”  But it was too late.  At that very moment the dinghy shot into the shadow of the fishing-boat.  There were two rapid pistol-shots, a scream, and then another pistol-shot, followed by silence.  The clustering fishermen had disappeared.  And then, suddenly, as the first puffs of a land-breeze came out from the Sussex shore, the boom swung out, the mainsail filled, and the little craft crept out with her nose to the Atlantic.

II

THE DEALINGS OF CAPTAIN SHARKEY WITH STEPHEN CRADDOCK

Careening was a very necessary operation for the old pirate.  On his superior speed he depended both for overhauling the trader and escaping the man-of-war.  But it was impossible to retain his sailing qualities unless he periodically—­once a year, at the least—­cleared his vessel’s bottom from the long, trailing plants and crusting barnacles which gather so rapidly in the tropical seas.  For this purpose he lightened his vessel, thrust her into some narrow inlet where she would be left high and dry at low water, fastened blocks and tackles to her masts to pull her over on to her bilge, and then scraped her thoroughly from rudder-post to cut-water.