They cursed all day the interference of those
ominous ships which steadily grew nearer. There were six ships at
first, and that night they slipped away from all but two; but all the
next day those two were still in sight, and each of them had more guns
than the _Desperate Lark_. All the next night Shard dodged about the
sea, but the two ships separated and one kept him in sight, and the
next morning it was alone with Shard on the sea, and his archipelago
was just in sight, the secret of his life.
And Shard saw he must fight, and a bad fight it was, and yet it suited
Shard's purpose, for he had more merry men when the fight began than
he needed for his island. And they got it over before any other ship
came up; and Shard put all adverse evidence out of the way, and came
that night to the islands near the Sargasso Sea.
Long before it was light the survivors of the crew were peering at the
sea, and when dawn came there was the island, no bigger than two
ships, straining hard at its anchor, with the wind in the tops of the
trees.
And then they landed and dug cabins below and raised the anchor out of
the deep sea, and soon they made the island what they called
shipshape. But the _Desperate Lark_ they sent away empty under full
sail to sea, where more nations than Shard suspected were watching for
her, and where she was presently captured by an admiral of Spain, who,
when he found none of that infamous crew on board to hang by the neck
from the yard-arm, grew ill through disappointment.
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