“Odds bobs, and now I come to think of it, those there vessels may be sailing to attack Gheria, seeing as how, as these niggers told us, they’ve bust up Suwarndrug.”

“Guess I’ll get to the foretop myself and take a look, sir,” said Mr. Toley.

He mounted, carrying the only perspective glass the vessel possessed.  The captain watched him anxiously as he took a long look.

“What do you make of ’em?” he shouted.

The mate shut up the telescope and came leisurely down.

“I count fifteen in all, sir.”

“I don’t care how many.  What are they?”

“I calculate they’re grabs and gallivats, sir.”

The captain gave a hoarse chuckle.

“By thunder, then, we’ll soon turn the tables!  Angria’s gallivats—­eh, Mr. Toley?  We’ll make a haul yet.”

But Captain Barker was to be disappointed.  The fleet had been descried also by the pursuers.  A few minutes later the grab threw out a signal, hauled her wind and stood away to the northward, followed closely by the two larger vessels.  The captain growled his disappointment.  Nearly a dozen of the coast craft, as they were now clearly seen to be, went in pursuit, but with little chance of coming up with the chase.  The remaining vessels of the newly-arrived fleet stood out to meet the Good Intent.

“Fetch us that Maratha fellow,” cried the captain, “and hoist a white flag.”

When the Maratha appeared, a pitiable object, emaciated for want of food, Captain Barker bade him shout as soon as the newcomers came within hailing distance.  The white flag at the masthead, and a loud, long-drawn hail from Hybati, apprised the grab that the Good Intent was no enemy, and averted hostilities.  And thus it was, amid a convoy of Angria’s own fleet, that Captain Barker’s vessel, a few hours later, sailed peacefully into the harbor of Gheria.

Desmond looked with curious eyes on the famous fort and harbor.  On the right, as the Good Intent entered, he saw a long, narrow promontory, at the end of which was a fortress, constructed, as it appeared, of solid rock.  The promontory was joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of sand, beyond which lay an open town of some size.  The shore was fringed with palmyras, mangoes and other tropical trees, and behind the straw huts and stone buildings of the town leafy groves clothed the sides of a gentle hill.

The harbor, which forms the mouth of a river, was studded with Angria’s vessels, large and small, and from the docks situated on the sandy isthmus came the busy sound of shipwrights at work.  The rocky walls of the fort were fifty feet high, with round towers, long curtains, and some fifty embrasures.  The left shore of the harbor was flat, but to the south of the fort rose a hill of the same height as the walls of rock.  Such was the headquarters of the notorious pirate Tulaji Angria, the last of the line which had for fifty years been the terror of the Malabar coast.