Captain Weaver was carrying out the instructions he had received at Old Harbour Town. He was chasing the Minorca. The recovery of Lucy had led to no change in those instructions. Though Captain Acton in his gratitude for the restoration of his child was willing to relinquish the pursuit and to leave the Minorca and the handsome piratical scoundrel who had sailed away with her and Lucy to their fate, he had not revealed his thoughts to Captain Weaver, nor to the Admiral, and the Aurora at this hour of daybreak on a day in June 1805, was steadily stemming in chase of the barque which she was to capture, Captain Weaver did not exactly know how. For the Aurora was unarmed, whilst the Minorca mounted four pieces of artillery, and was in command of a naturally desperate fighting and fearless spirit, one whose neck would certainly be broken by the hangman if he was taken: unless indeed his crew turned upon him, and backed their yards and stopped the ship, that her owner might come by his own, despite Mr Lawrence's levelled[Pg 390] pistol or any threats he might make use of in reference to the powder magazine. "But," Captain Weaver had thought to himself on several occasions, "time enough to know what's a-going to happen when we heave the Minorca into view or draw abreast of her, for who's to tell but that we are bound to miss her, in which case we shall receive her at Rio, providing her skipper hasn't got scent of us and shifted his hellum for another port, and then there can be no blazing away of carronades on one side and a trimming of sail to keep clear of shot on the other.",
Then, his master still remaining blind to the wealth of treasure disclosed to him, Croaker spread his wings and sailed away over the pine-tops. Billy, despair in his heart, followed. All fear of the supernatural was gone from him now, crowded out by bitter disappointment at his failure to find the hidden gold. He passed close beside the haunted house without so much as a thought of the ghost of the man who had owned it and on through the silent pines and shadowy, grave-yard silence.,
Erie clasped her hands in ecstasy at sight of the wild ducks. "Oh, aren't they lovely!" she cried. "Put them in the ice-house, Daddy, until Billy starts for home.".
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