“True, it did not,” I confessed.  “I am lucky in having an old mariner like you to look after me.”

“Ay, and there be old mariners aboard that brig, too.  See, they bin and dropped a couple of boats out, to tow her off.”

This gave me a start, and I watched with great anxiety the efforts of the buccaneers to haul their vessel off the shoals.  She was not more than fifty yards from the cliff where we were standing, which somewhat overhung the bay, and from our elevated position we could see clearly what was going on.  I suppose it was a full hour before they gave up the attempt, and ’twas clear that having failed a good many more hours must pass before ’twould be possible to float her, for the tide, which had been at the flood when she ran aground, was now ebbing, and Vetch could not (any more than King Canute) command that.

I think if I had been Vetch, with so much at stake (for if we got the better of him, be sure there would soon be a halter about his neck)—­I think if I had been in his place, with nigh a score of stalwart daredevils at my beck, all armed and trained to desperate deeds, I should have waded ashore wi’ ’em and made some effort to run us down.  He must have known that there could be but two or three of us, and with a little manoeuvering and stealth there was a chance that he might have got upon us and done us mischief.

But Vetch, as has more than once appeared, was never a fellow to run into jeopardy; and our very weakness, I doubt not, persuaded him that he had nothing to fear in way of assault, and need only bide for the next flood to carry him out beyond our reach.

Many times during that night I thought of Mistress Lucy, and wondered whether she, below decks, had guessed from the movement of the vessel, and the commotion and uproar, that we were still working for her behoof.  She told me afterwards that, having locked herself in the cabin, she was in a stupor of grief, and felt, when the vessel moved (believing that it was putting out to sea) that nothing could save her now.  But when she heard the shouts and the firing, a wild hope sprang up within her; she was possessed with a strong assurance that something was being attempted for her sake, and she clasped her hands and prayed that it might have a happy issue.

Chapter 29:  We Bombard The Brig.

’Twas not very long before Uncle Moses was back, bringing welcome blankets, in which I rolled myself while my clothes were drying at a fire Joe kindled in the wood.  The old negro said that we could not expect any reinforcements before daybreak, the people being quite unwilling to march during the night so far from their homes.  He had brought back with him, however, Noah and Jacob on horseback, and indeed I suspected that without them even Uncle Moses himself would not have conquered his dread of the bugaboos and faced the night journey a second time.