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to have weapons in our hands. We had no sooner observed him than
he found his legs and made off again among the pines.

This was no scene to put our minds at rest: a couple of armed men
in sea-clothes found quarrelling over a treasure, not many miles
from where a pirate had been captured - here was enough to bring
the whole country about our ears. The quarrel was not even made
up; it was blotted from our minds; and we got our packets together
in the twinkling of an eye, and made off, running with the best
will in the world. But the trouble was, we did not know in what
direction, and must continually return upon our steps. Ballantrae
had indeed collected what he could from Dutton; but it's hard to
travel upon hearsay; and the estuary, which spreads into a vast
irregular harbour, turned us off upon every side with a new stretch
of water.

We were near beside ourselves, and already quite spent with
running, when, coming to the top of a dune, we saw we were again
cut off by another ramification of the bay. This was a creek,
however, very different from those that had arrested us before;
being set in rocks, and so precipitously deep that a small vessel
was able to lie alongside, made fast with a hawser; and her crew
had laid a plank to the shore. Here they had lighted a fire, and
were sitting at their meal. As for the vessel herself, she was one
of those they build in the Bermudas.

The love of gold and the great hatred that everybody has to pirates
were motives of the most influential, and would certainly raise the
country in our pursuit. Besides, it was now plain we were on some
sort of straggling peninsula, like the fingers of a hand; and the
wrist, or passage to the mainland, which we should have taken at
the first, was by this time not improbably secured. These
considerations put us on a bolder counsel. For as long as we
dared, looking every moment to hear sounds of the chase, we lay
among some bushes on the top of the dune; and having by this means
secured a little breath and recomposed our appearance, we strolled
down at last, with a great affectation of carelessness, to the
party by the fire.

It was a trader and his negroes, belonging to Albany, in the
province of New York, and now on the way home from the Indies with
a cargo; his name I cannot recall. We were amazed to learn he had
put in here from terror of the SARAH; for we had no thought our
exploits had been so notorious. As soon as the Albanian heard she
had been taken the day before, he jumped to his feet, gave us a cup
of spirits for our good news, and sent big negroes to get sail on
the Bermudan. On our side, we profited by the dram to become more
confidential, and at last offered ourselves as passengers. He
looked askance at our tarry clothes and pistols, and replied
civilly enough that he had scarce accommodation for himself; nor
could either our prayers or our offers of money, in which we
advanced pretty far, avail to shake him.

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