“I will soon return,” he said, “and bring you forty or fifty fresh men, who will make light work with your wreck.  I am certain our commander will consent to my doing so, and will gladly send on board you two or three boat’s crews.”

“If I let him,” muttered Spike between his teeth, “I shall be a poor, miserable cast-anchor devil, that’s all.”

To Wallace, however, he expressed his hearty acknowledgments; begged him not to be in a hurry, as the worst was now over, and the row was still a long one.  If he got back toward evening it would be all in good time.  Wallace waved his hand, and the gig glided away.  As for Spike, he sat down on the plank-sheer where he had stood, and remained there ruminating intently for two or three minutes.  When he descended to the deck his mind was fully made up.  His first act was to give some private orders to the boatswain, after which he withdrew to the cabin, whither he summoned Tier, without delay.

“Jack,” commenced the captain, using very little circumlocution in opening his mind, “you and I are old shipmates, and ought to be old friends, though I think your natur’ has undergone some changes since we last met.  Twenty years ago there was no man in the ship on whom I could so certainly depend as on Jack Tier; now, you seem given up altogether to the women.  Your mind has changed even more than your body.”

“Time does that for all of us, Captain Spike,” returned Tier coolly.  “I am not what I used to be, I’ll own, nor are you yourself, for that matter.  When I saw you last, noble captain, you were a handsome man of forty, and could go aloft with any youngster in the brig; but, now, you’re heavy, and not over-active.”

“I!—­Not a bit of change has taken place in me for the last thirty years.  I defy any man to show the contrary.  But that’s neither here nor there; you are no young woman, Jack, that I need be boasting of my health and beauty before you.  I want a bit of real sarvice from you, and want it done in old-times fashion; and I mean to pay for it in old-times fashion, too.”

As Spike concluded, he put into Tier’s hand one of the doubloons that he had received from Senor Montefalderon, in payment for the powder.  The doubloons, for which so much pumping and bailing were then in process, were still beneath the waters of the gulf.

“Ay, ay, sir,” returned Jack, smiling and pocketing the gold, with a wink of the eye, and a knowing look; “this does resemble old times sum’at.  I now begin to know Captain Spike, my old commander again, and see that he’s more like himself than I had just thought him.  What am I to do for this, sir? speak plain, that I may be sartain to steer the true course.”

“Oh, just a trifle, Jack—­nothing that will break up the ground-tier of your wits, my old shipmate.  You see the state of the brig, and know that she is in no condition for ladies.”

“’T would have been better all round, sir, had they never come aboard at all,” answered Jack, looking dark.