and taken aboard, as was most probable, for me to be left behind on
shore would mean her total abandonment. Better any risk of discovery
than that. To be sure I had no plan of action devised, no conception
of how a rescue could be effected. Yet such an opportunity might
develop, and my one hope lay in being prepared, and ready. With the
death of Sanchez, his second in command would undoubtedly succeed
him; but would that be Estada, or would it be this other, the mulatto,
Francois LeVere? More likely the former, for while buccaneers had
operated under colored chiefs, a crew of white men would naturally
prefer to be led by one of their own color. Indeed it was even
possible that a controversy might arise, and a divided authority
result. Discipline among such as these depended entirely on strength
and ferocity. The most daring and resourceful became the chosen
leaders, whose only test was success. Perhaps, in the turmoil, and
uncertainty, arising from a knowledge of Sanchez's death, and the
jealousy thus aroused between those who would succeed him in command,
I might discover the very opportunity I sought. These were some of the
thoughts which animated me, and gave new strength to my arms, as I
sent the dory flying through the water.

My boat, unguided, had drifted considerably farther out into the Bay
than I had supposed, and it required a good half hour of steady toil
at the oars before I sighted ahead of me the darker outlines of the
shore. Nothing had crossed our path, and no unusual sound had reached
my ears along the black water. If the _Namur's_ boat had already
returned to the bark, its passage must have been made during the
period of my unconsciousness, and this seemed to me utterly
impossible. The course I had followed thus far took me directly across
the water which they would be compelled to traverse, and they could
not have passed unnoticed. No, they were surely yet in the