“It’s too bad that we can’t be decent to people, Sailor, isn’t it?  It makes life awfully sad,” I said.

Sailor wagged his tail.

The stars were fading on the eastern islands.

“Wake up, Tom,” I called, and, “wake up, Captain!” Meanwhile, I took out the revolver from my hip pocket, and held it over the man I seemed to grow more and more sorry for.

“We’ve not only got a mutiny aboard,” I told the captain, “but we’ve got treason to the British Government.  Do you want to stand for that?  Or shall I put you ashore with the rest?”

Unruffled as usual, he had nothing to say beyond

“Ay, ay, sir!”

“Take this cord then,” I ordered him and Tom, “and bind the hands and feet of this pock-marked gentleman here; also of George, engineer; and also of Theodore, the deck-hand.  Bind them well.  And throw them into the dingy, with a bottle of water apiece, and a loaf of bread.  By noon, we’ll have some wind, and can make our way to Harbour Island, and there I’ll have a little talk with the Commandant.”

And as I ordered, all was done.  Tom and I rowed the dingy ashore, with our three captives bound like three silly fowls, and presently threw them ashore with precious little ceremony, I can tell you; for the coral rock is not all it sounds in poetry.  Then we got back to the Maggie Darling, with imprecations in our ears, and particularly the promises of the pock-marked rebel, who announced the certainty of our meeting again.

Of course we laughed at such threats, but I confess that, as I went down to my cabin and picked up the “manifesto,” which had been forgotten in all the turmoil, I could not escape a certain thrill as I read the signature—­for it was:  “Henry P. Tobias, Jr.”

CHAPTER VI

The Incident of the Captain.

As we hoisted the sails and the sun came up in all his glory, the smell of Tom’s coffee seemed to my prosaic mind the best of all in that beautiful world.  I said:  “Let’s give ’em a song, boys,—­to cheer ’em up.  How about ’Delia gone!’?”

At this suggestion even the imperturbability of the captain broke into a smile.  He was a man hard to move, but this suggestion seemed to tickle him.

Some gave a nickel, some gave a dime;
I never gave no red cent—­
She was no girl of mine. 
Delia gone!  Delia gone!

seemed to throw him into convulsions, and I took the helm awhile to give him a chance to recover.  The exquisiteness of its appeal to the scoundrels, so securely trussed there on the island we were swiftly leaving behind, seemed to get him to such a degree that I was almost afraid that he might die of laughing, as has been heard of.  He laughed as only a negro can laugh, and he kept it going so infectiously that Tom and I got started, just watching him.  Even Sailor caught the infection, his big tongue shaking his jaws with the huge joke of it.