"How shall you answer for what you have done?"
"What I did I did with the point of a knife betwixt my blade-bones."
"God forgive you for a coward, Joshua Hird. How came you into their
hands?"
"Why, Master Craddock, the pirate ship came back from its careening upon
the very day that you left us. They laid us aboard, and, short-handed
as we were, with the best of the men ashore with you, we could offer but
a poor defence. Some were cut down, and they were the happiest. The
others were killed afterwards. As to me, I saved my life by signing on
with them."
"And they scuttled my ship?"
"They scuttled her, and then Sharkey and his men, who had been watching
us from the brushwood, came off to the ship. His mainyard had been
cracked and fished last voyage, so he had suspicions of us, seeing that
ours was whole. Then he thought of laying the same trap for you which
you had set for him."
Craddock groaned. "How came I not to see that fished mainyard?" he
muttered. "But whither are we bound?"
"We are running north and west."
"North and west! Then we are heading back towards Jamaica."
"With an eight-knot wind."
"Have you heard what they mean to do with me?"
"I have not heard. If you would but sign the articles--"
"Enough, Joshua Hird! I have risked my soul too often.
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