“Now, then,” said Baragat to the Captain, “what you have to do is easy enough.  Sail straight for our port and those sea-robbers will follow you; for, of course, they will wish to get their own vessel back again, and will hope, by some carelessness on our part, to overtake us.  In the mean time the money will be safe enough, for they will have no opportunity of spending it; and when we come to port, we can take some soldiers on board, and go back and capture those fellows.  They can never sail away from us on the ‘Horn o’ Plenty.’”

“That is an admirable plan,” said the Captain, “and I shall carry it out; but I cannot sail to port immediately.  I must first find Apple Island and land these boys, whose parents and guardians are probably growing very uneasy.  I suppose the corsairs will continue to follow us wherever we go.”

“I hope so,” said Baragat; “at any rate we shall see.”

The First Class in Long Division was very much delighted with the change of vessels, and the boys rambled everywhere, and examined with great interest all that belonged to the corsairs.  They felt quite easy about the only treasures they possessed, because, when they had first seen the piratical vessel approaching, they had taken the precious nuts which had been given to them by the King, and had hidden them at the bottom of some large boxes, in which the Captain kept the sailors’ winter clothes.

“In this warm climate,” said the eldest boy, “the robbers will never meddle with those winter clothes, and our precious fruit will be perfectly safe.”

“If you had taken my advice,” said one of the other boys, “we should have eaten some of the nuts.  Those, at least, we should have been sure of.”

“And we should have had that many less to show to the other classes,” said the eldest boy.  “Nuts like these, I am told, if picked at the proper season, will keep for a long time.”

For some days the corsairs on board the “Horn o’ Plenty” followed their own vessel, but then they seemed to despair of ever being able to overtake it, and steered in another direction.  This threatened to ruin all the plans of Captain Covajos, and his mind became troubled.  Then the boy who had studied mechanics came forward and said to the Captain: 

“I’ll tell you what I’d do, sir, if I were you; I’d follow your old ship, and when night came on I’d sail up quite near to her, and let some of your sailors swim quietly over, and fasten a cable to her, and then you could tow her after you wherever you wished to go.”

“But they might unfasten the cable, or cut it,” said Baragat, who was standing by.

“That could easily be prevented,” said the boy.  “At their end of the cable must be a stout chain which they cannot cut, and it must be fastened so far beneath the surface of the water that they will not be able to reach it to unfasten it.”

“A most excellent plan,” said Captain Covajos; “let it be carried out.”