The boat returned and was hoisted aboard. Just as the mainsail had been run up and the schooner was filling away for her northward beat, a single shout from the crosstrees caused every man to turn his gaze sh.o.r.eward into the gathering dark. A faint glow seemed to hang in the air above the pirate sloop. A little snaky flame wriggled its way along a piece of sagging cordage, licked at the edges of a torn sail, and flared outward in a burst of red fire. A moment later, and the whole schooner was ablaze, from waterline to masthead. Jeremy, watching, fascinated, from the _Tiger"s_ rail, thought of the night when he had first seen that black hull, and of the burning brig that had lit up the sky as the pirate sloop now illumined it. Her fate was the same that she had meted out to many a good ship.
They were rapidly drawing away, now. The great glare of the burning schooner faded out as the flame devoured her fabric. The foremast toppled and fell in a shower of sparks. The mainmast followed. Only a feeble light flickered along the edges of the low-lying hulk. The faint gleam of it was visible, astern, for some time before it was swallowed by the dark sea.
The _Revenge_ was gone.
This is the end of my story.
Of the voyage to Boston town; of how Job was nursed back to health by Phineas Whipple, the best surgeon in all the colonies; of the glorious reunion when Amos Swan and Clarke Curtis rejoined their sons; of the many pleasant things that Bob and Jeremy found to do together, after the Swans had come to live in Philadelphia--of all these things there is not s.p.a.ce enough in this book for me to tell.
Jeremy Swan grew up to be one of the great Americans of his day: a man strong, wise and independent. And although he became rich and highly honored, he never lost the simplicity of his ways.
Sometimes when he was a hale old man of seventy, he would take his grandson, who was named Job Cantwell Swan, on his knee, and tell him stories. But the story that young Job loved best to hear and that old Jeremy loved best to tell was about a boy in deerskin breeches, and the wild days and nights he saw aboard the Black Buccaneer.
THE END.