In their turn, they related the events of their search for him, and described the fight around the cabin in which he had so lately been a prisoner.

"And there's the end of the fight now," said Norton, pointing to the group of combatants and to a boat manned by five oarsmen who were putting out to sea. "Look! There they go!---all of them who managed to escape No! By Jove, the boat's coming back to sh.o.r.e! I suppose Uncle Sam's men threatened to shoot the rascals if they didn't come back."

"Serves 'em right!" said Chester.

"Let's go over there and watch proceedings," urged Alec.

"I second the motion!" Hugh declared, eager to see the latest developments.

So without further discussion, they hurried over to the place, and were in time to witness the capture of Bego and his gang.

By morning, a sullen company of prisoners was put aboard the _Petrel_ and conveyed southward to Key West for trial.

The interval between their capture and the departure of the revenue cutter was spent in putting out the fire near Durgan's cove, all that remained of the three adjoining shanties being a heap of charred logs and wind-swept ashes. Durgan's motor boat was fastened by means of a long cable to the aft rail of the _Arrow_, which was commissioned to tow it to a wharf at Charlotte Harbor, where it would be delivered to a brother of the smuggler. This brother, a thoroughly honest fisherman, was well known to Captain Vinton.

Bego's ship, the _Esperanza_, remained at anchor off the cove.

Arrangements were made for its safe delivery at Charlotte Harbor, as soon as a suitable crew could be sent to convey it to that haven.

Hoping that his presence might not be required at the trial, though fully resigned to the probability of having to attend it, Hugh wrote out and signed a full statement of his experiences with the outlaws.

This paper was also signed by Norton, Captain Vinton, and Lieutenant Driscoll, as testifying their belief in its veracity. The captain of the _Petrel_ undertook to deliver it to the proper authorities, and it was eventually accepted in lieu of Hugh's personal testimony.

Having attended to these matters, the crew of the _Arrow_ went aboard about noon. The day was perfect for the return voyage, a fair breeze blew against her weather-stained sails, and the ocean was as blue as sapphire.

The entire party was glad to be on the sloop's clean decks once more; even Dave seemed happy and relieved when Durgan's Cove and its outlying sh.o.r.es faded into a velvety green blur along the horizon.

So they left the scene of their adventures, and glided swiftly away "on the home stretch," as Chester called it, under cloudless skies.

CHAPTER XI

ABOARD THE "_ARROW_"

It was not until the second day of the voyage back toward Santario that Hugh felt quite himself again. The nervous strain of his experiences as a captive would have been enough to exhaust him, and in addition he had suffered real buffeting and hardship at the hands of his captors.

Dave stretched a hammock for him on deck at the captain's orders, and there Hugh spent nearly the entire first day of the homeward trip.

The other boys and Norton diverted his few waking hours with stories and riddles and simple games, and Captain Vinton, himself, contributed more than one tale from his store of recollections.

"Tell you what, boys," the old captain said as he concluded one of his yarns, "we fellers these days meet with a few excitin'

experiences now and then, but to get some idea of what lively times on the water may be, go back to John Paul Jones and his day, or even to the sea fights of '62."

"Have you read much of the history of those days, captain?" inquired Roy Norton interestedly, while the boys leaned forward to hear the reply.

"Son," said Captain Vinton in answer, turning to Alec Sands, his blue eyes alight with a keen expression, "Son, go to my cabin and bring me an old, worn book from the shelf there: 'Famous American Naval Commanders,' it is called."

Until Alec's return, the captain looked out over the water with far-seeing eyes, and the others, watching him, wondered what stirring scenes his imagination was picturing to him just then.

He glanced up as Alec handed him the volume of naval history and grasped it with the firm gentleness of a true book lover. He turned it over thoughtfully, straightened its sagging covers, opened and closed it several times, and finally spoke:

"Thar's the answer to yer question, Norton," he said. "And that's only one of about a dozen hist'ries I've got on my old shelf.

When times is dull or I'm waitin' fer a party who've gone into the Everglades, or when the _Arrow_ is lyin' off sh.o.r.e in a dead calm, then I start in at the first page of the book that happens ter be on the end of the shelf, and I live over the old days of the privateers, when it meant somethin' to sail the seas."

"Who is your _biggest_ hero?" asked Mark as the captain paused.

The old man smiled humorously before he answered.

"Wal', my biggest hero," he said, "is the littlest hero on record as a sea-fighter, I guess. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, his bigness was not in his body but in his mind. And that's Paul Jones of the _Bonhomme Richard_."

As the captain p.r.o.nounced the name of his hero, he struck his worn book a resounding slap, and his jaws clicked in emphasis of his statement.

"Can't you tell us something about him?" asked Chester, fascinated by the old captain's earnestness.

"That's the ticket---I mean, please do," endorsed Billy heartily.

"No, I can't do that," was the deliberate reply, as the captain rose to relieve Dave at the tiller, "but you can all borry the book and read the historian's account of the battle between the _Serapis_ and the _Bonhomme Richard_. I git so excited when I read that, I hey ter go put my head in a pail o' water to cool it off! Fact!

You know that's whar the cap'n of the _Serapis_ calls out: 'Hev ye struck?' And John Paul Jones shouts back: 'Struck! I am just beginnin' ter fight!'"

As Captain Vinton straightened his rounded shoulders and delivered this emphatic quotation, he shook his fist at an imaginary enemy and then brought it down hard on the railing. Then he grinned sheepishly.

"You see how 'tis," he said, laughing at himself as he moved away.

"Guess I'll hev ter stop talkin' or go fer that pail o' water!"

The boys, left to themselves, discussed the theme that the captain's words had suggested, and were rather ashamed to see how vague their knowledge of the famous battle was. So, at Alec's suggestion, Norton agreed to read the account of the fight as given in the captain's book; and grouped about Hugh's hammock, the boys listened eagerly.

"That makes our experiences on picket duty seem tame in comparison,"

said Alec, commenting on the story when Norton had closed the book.

"We were not all on the firing line," replied the young man, smiling.

"I'll venture to say that Hugh did not find his share at all tame."

Hugh smiled and nodded ruefully as his mind flew back to his dangerous situation as a captive of the desperate filibusters, and he felt that he could understand a little of what it meant to be in the thick of the fight.

"Me, too," exclaimed Billy, shuddering at a sudden recollection.

"I haven't told you fellows that I came near having my ear shot off, that time the other night when I was separated from the rest of you for a while. Excuse me from anything nearer real battle fire than that!"

Just at that moment, a soft, regular thump-thump-thump from the deck behind Hugh's hammock made all the boys turn quickly.

There stood Dave, skillfully flinging gayly colored hoops over a post at some distance from him.

"Oh, ho! A game of ring-toss, is it?" cried Chester, rising eagerly.

"Say, boys, let's form rival teams and have a tournament."

"Good!" echoed Billy. "The Pickets versus the Pirates!"