amiliar voice.

"You, Black Dog? Where's your master?"

"Yonder."

"Let me see him."

A tall, slender figure muffled in a heavy riding-coat sat in the stern
sheets of a small boat in the deepest shadow of one of the silent and
deserted piers.

"Captain Morgan?" whispered Hornigold softly, as followed by the maroon
he descended the landing stairs leading toward the boat.

"'Tis you, Master Hornigold," answered the man, with an accent of relief
in his voice, thrusting the pistol back into his belt as he spoke. He,
too, was a ready man with his weapons and one not to be caught napping
in any emergency.

"Me it is, sir," answered the boatswain, "and ready to serve my old
captain."

"You heard the news?"

"I heard it on the frigate this afternoon."

"Why did you not send me warning?"

"I had no chance. I'd 'a' done it, sir, if I could have fetched away."

"Well, all's one. I've laid those two landlubbers by the heels. Eh,
Carib?"

"Where are they, sir?"

"I might make a guess, for I left them bound and the house blazing."

"'Tis like old times!"

"Ay! I've not forgot the old tricks."

"No, sir. And what's to do now?"

"Why, the old game once more."

"What? You don't mean----"

"I do. What else is there left for me? Scuttle me, if I don't take it
out of the Dons! It's their doing. They've had a rest for nigh twenty
years. We'll let it slip out quietly among the islands that Harry
Morgan's afloat once more and there's pickings to be had on the Spanish
Main--wine and women and pieces of eight. Art with me?"

"Ay, of course. But we lack a ship."

"There's one yonder, man," cried Morgan, pointing up the harbor, where
the lights of the _Mary Rose_ twinkled in the blackness.

"To be sure the ship is there, but----"

"But what?"

"We've no force. The old men are gone."

"I am here," answered Morgan, "and you and Black Dog. And there are a
few others left. Teach is new, but will serve; I heard his bull voice
roaring out from the tavern. And de Lussan and Velsers, and the rest.
I've kept sight of ye. Curse it all, I let you live when I might have
hanged you."

"You did, captain, you did. You didn't hang everybody--but you didn't
spare, either."

It would have been better for the captain if it had been lighter and he
could have seen the sudden and sharp set of Master Hornigold's jaws,
which, coupled with the fierceness which flamed into his one eye as he
hissed out that last sentence, might have