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LOST SHIPS AND LONELY SEAS

consented, providing he went out in the daytime and stayed well inside the bay.

After several fishing trips, Woodard sauntered down to the beach in the dusk as though to overhaul the canoe for an early start next morning. The villagers had ceased to watch his movements. The proa rode at anchor only a few yards away, where the channel ran close to a steep bank. The pirates were lounging on deck and in the cabin, and none of them happened to glance in the direction of the canoe. Woodard waited a little, and slid the canoe into the quiet water. As silent as a drifting leaf it moved away with the tide, while he lay in the bottom with a fishing-line over the side as a pretext if he should be hailed from the proa.

Unobserved, he landed at another beach, where his comrades awaited him. They embarked, and stole out of the bay with food and water to last them several days. At last they were bound for Macassar and again ready to defy the devil and the deep sea. For three days they held on their way and began to think the luck had turned when a small proa tacked out from the land and overtook the canoe. Woodard recognized the crew as acquaintances of his from Tomboa, and frankly told them where he was going. They commanded him to fetch his men aboard the proa, and they would be given up to the