"from the silent
peak in Darien" they beheld for the first time after their tremendous
march the glittering expanse of the South Seas, with white Panama in its
green trees before them, the old cry of the famous Ten Thousand,
"Thalatta! Thalatta! The sea! The sea!" had burst from many lips.

All his learning and refinement of manner had not prevented young
Ebenezer Hornigold from being as bad at heart as his brother, which is
saying a great deal, and because he was younger, more reckless, less
prudent, than he of riper years, he had incautiously put himself in the
power of Morgan and had been hanged with short shrift. Benjamin,
standing upon the outskirts of the crowd jesting and roaring around the
foot of the gibbet, with a grief and rage in his heart at his impotency,
presently found himself hating his old captain with a fierceness
proportioned to his devotion in the past. For he had appealed for mercy
personally to Morgan by the memory of his former services and had been
sternly repulsed and coldly dismissed with a warning that he should look
to his own future conduct lest, following in the course of his brother,
he should find himself with his neck in the noose.

Morgan, colossal in his conceit and careless in his courage, thought not
to inquire, or, if he gave the subject any consideration at all,
dismissed it from his mind as of little moment, as to what was the
subsequent state of Hornigold's feelings. Hornigold could have killed
Morgan on numberless occasions, but a consuming desire for a more
adequate revenge than mere death had taken hold of him, and he deferred
action until he could contrive some means by which to strike him in a
way that he conceived would glut his obsession of inexpiable hatred.

Hornigold had reformed, outwardly that is, and was now engaged in the
useful and innocent business of piloting ships into the harbor, also
steering their crews, after the anchors were down, into the Blue Anchor
tavern, in which place his voice and will were supreme. He had heard,
for Lord Carlingford had made no secret of his orders, that his old
master was to be arrested and sent back to England. The news which would
have brought joy to a lesser villain, in that it meant punishment,
filled him with dismay, for such was the peculiarity of his hatred that
he wanted the punishment to come directly from him--through his agency,
that is. He desired it to be of such character that it should be neither
speedy nor easy,