“Well, it is a comfort to think that even if we had sailed direct here from Porto Rico we should not have caught her,” Frank said to George Lechmere.  “She had left here two days before we got there.  I suppose they have someone on board who has been in the islands before, for certainly the harbours are the best in the group.  No doubt they got some fishermen to bring them into the creek.  Well, there is nothing to do but to turn her head west.  It is but forty-eight hours’ sail to San Domingo, and I fancy that it is likely that he will have stopped there.  You see on the chart that there are numberless bays, and there would be no fear of questions being asked by the blacks.  If we don’t find him there we must try Cuba; but San Domingo is by far the most likely place for him to choose for his headquarters, and there are at least four biggish rivers he could sail up, beside a score of smaller ones.

“I should say that we had better try the south and west first.  The coast is a great deal more indented there than it is to the north.  There seem to be any number of creeks and bays.  I should think that he would be likely to make one of these his headquarters, and spend his time cruising about.”

Although Dominique professed a thorough knowledge of the coast of San Domingo and Hayti, Frank could see that he was not so absolutely certain as he was of the Virgin Islands, and he told him to land at villages as he passed along, and bring fishermen off acquainted with the waters in their locality.

“Dat am de safest way for sure, sar,” Dominique said.  “Dis chile know de coast bery well, can pilot ship into town of San Domingo or any oder port that ships go to, but he could not say for certain where all de rocks and shoals are along places where de ships neber go in.”

Three days later the Osprey, after sailing along the northern shore, arrived at Porto Rico and, passing through the Mona channel between that island and San Domingo, dropped anchor in the port of the capital.  Dominique went ashore with Pedro, and spent some hours in boarding coasting craft and questioning negroes whether they had seen the brigantine.  Several of them had noticed her.  She had been cruising off the coast, and had put in at the mouth of the Nieve, and at Jaquemel on the south coast of Hayti.  They heard of her, too, in the deep bay at the west of the island between Capes Dame Marie and La Move.  Some had seen her sailing one way, some another; she had evidently been, as Frank had expected, cruising about.

Pedro put down the dates of the times at which she had been seen, but negroes are very vague as to time, and beyond the fact that some had seen her about a week before, while in other cases it was nearer a fortnight, he could ascertain nothing with certainty.  So far as he could learn, she had only put into three ports, although the coasters he boarded came from some twenty different localities.