The return journey was less difficult, as they had already blazed a path for themselves.  Before evening they found themselves once more at the Bay of Palms, and saw their ship riding at anchor where they had left her.  Their boat and oars had been hauled up among the bushes, so they launched it and pulled out to the barque.

“No luck, then!” cried Joshua Hird, the mate, looking down with a pale face from the poop.

“His camp was empty, but he may come down to us yet,” said Craddock, with his hand on the ladder.

Somebody upon deck began to laugh.  “I think,” said the mate, “that these men had better stay in the boat.”

“Why so?”

“If you will come aboard, sir, you will understand it.”  He spoke in a curious, hesitating fashion.

The blood flushed to Craddock’s gaunt face.  “How is this, Master Hird?” he cried, springing up the side.  “What mean you by giving orders to my boat’s crew?”

But as he passed over the bulwarks, with one foot upon the deck and one knee upon the rail, a tow-bearded man, whom he had never before observed aboard his vessel, grabbed suddenly at his pistol.  Craddock clutched at the fellow’s wrist, but at the same instant his mate snatched the cutlass from his side.

“What roguery is this?” shouted Craddock, looking furiously around him.  But the crew stood in knots about the deck, laughing and whispering amongst themselves without showing any desire to go to his assistance.  Even in that hurried glance Craddock noticed that they were dressed in the most singular manner, with long riding-coats, full-skirted velvet gowns and coloured ribands at their knees, more like men of fashion than seamen.

As he looked at their grotesque figures he struck his brow with his clenched fist to be sure that he was awake.  The deck seemed to be much dirtier than when he had left it, and there were strange, sun-blackened faces turned upon him from every side.  Not one of them did he know save only Joshua Hird.  Had the ship been captured in his absence?  Were these Sharkey’s men who were around him?  At the thought he broke furiously away and tried to climb over to his boat, but a dozen hands were on him in an instant, and he was pushed aft through the open door of his own cabin.

And it was all different to the cabin which he had left.  The floor was different, the ceiling was different, the furniture was different.  His had been plain and austere.  This was sumptuous and yet dirty, hung with rare velvet curtains splashed with wine-stains, and panelled with costly woods which were pocked with pistol-marks.

On the table was a great chart of the Caribbean Sea, and beside it, with compasses in his hand, sat a clean-shaven, pale-faced man with a fur cap and a claret-coloured coat of damask.  Craddock turned white under his freckles as he looked upon the long, thin high-nostrilled nose and the red-rimmed eyes which were turned upon him with the fixed, humorous gaze of the master player who has left his opponent without a move.  “Sharkey!” cried Craddock.