“You shall have a bottle of Hollands for company,” promised Captain Cornelisz.

So the hatch was pulled up, and down Jacka crept and curled himself up in the darkness.  The Dutchman provisioned him there with a bottle of strong waters and a bag of biscuits, and—­what’s more—­called down to him so long as was prudent and kept him informed how the chase was going.

By this time the lugger—­which I needn’t tell you was Mr. Zephaniah Job’s pet Unity, with Captain Dick Hewitt commanding—­was closing down on the Van der Werf, overhauling her hand-over-fist.  Down in the lazarette Jacka had scarcely finished prising the cork out of his bottle of Hollands when he heard the bang of a gun.  This was the lugger’s command to round-to and surrender; and the old boy, who had been vexing himself with fear that some cruiser might drop in and spoil sport, put the bottle to his mouth and drank Mr. Job’s very good health.

“For I think,” says he to himself, with a chuckle, “I can trust Cap’n Dick Hewitt to put his foot into this little mess just as deep as it will go.”

With that, being heavy after his night’s watch, he tied up his chin in his bandanna handkerchief to keep him from snoring, curled round, and dropped off to sleep like a babe.

Well, sir, Cap’n Dick Hewitt brought-to his prize, as he reckoned her; and when he came aboard and sized up the cargo and the Unity’s luck, as he reckoned it, his boastfulness was neither to hold nor to bind.  No such windfall had been picked up for the Pride of the West during the four years he’d been in the company’s service.  He scarce stayed to give a glance at the Van der Werf’s papers, though Captain Cornelisz was ready for him with the wrong set.  “I guess,” says he, “you’ll spare yourself the trouble to pretend you ain’t a Dutchman”; and when the skipper flung his arms about and began to jabber like a play-actor, ’twas “All right, Mynheer; we’ll talk about that at Falmouth.  Look here, boys,” he sings out to his boarding party, “we’ve something here too good to be let out of sight.  My idea is to reach back for Polperro in company, and let Mr. Job and the shareholders have a view of her before taking her round to Falmouth.  It won’t cost us three hours extra,” says he, “and a little bit of a flourish is excusable under the circumstances.”

So up for Polperro they bore, half a dozen men from the lugger working the Van der Werf, and old Captain Jacka asleep in her lazarette till roused out of his dreams by the rattle as they cast anchor half a cable’s length outside the haven.  The tide was drawing to flood and the evening dusking down, and in sails Captain Dick in the Unity as big as bull’s beef, and shouts his news to all the loafers on the quay.

“But come and take a look at her for yourself,” says he to Mr. Job, who had stepped down with his best telescope.

Job put off that evening in something like a flutter of spirits; for to tell the truth half a dozen of the shareholders had been cutting up rough over his treatment of Jacka, and here was an answer for them, and proof that he’d been right in preaching up Dick Hewitt to be worth ten of the old man.