" answered Hornigold.

"I shall. That will be your boat yonder?"

"Ay. Just beyond the point."

"Is anybody aboard of her?"

"No one."

"Is there rum and water enough for one day?"

"Plenty. In the locker in the cuddy."

"Good! Come, Carib. Until to-morrow night, then!"

"Ay, ay, sir," said Hornigold, leaning over the pier and watching the
boat fade into a black blur on the water as it drew away toward the
pinnace.

"He's mine, by heaven, he's mine!" he whispered under his breath as he
turned and walked slowly up to the house.

Yet Master Hornigold meant to keep faith with his old captain. He was
sick and tired of assumed respectability, of honest piloting of ships to
the harbor, of drinking with worthy merchantmen or the King's sailors.
The itch for the old buccaneering game was hard upon him. To hear the
fire crackle and roar through a doomed ship, to lord it over shiploads
of terrified men and screaming women, to be sated with carnage and drunk
with liquor, to dress in satins and velvets and laces, to let the broad
pieces of eight run through his grimy fingers, to throw off restraint
and be a free sailor, a gentleman rover, to return to the habits of his
earlier days and revel in crime and sin--it was for all this that his
soul lusted again.

He would betray Morgan, yet a flash of his old admiration for the man
came into his mind as he licked his lips like a wolf and thought of the
days of rapine. There never was such a leader. He had indeed been the
terror of the seas. Under no one else would there be such prospects for
successful piracy. Yes, he would do all for him faithfully, up to the
point of revenge. Morgan's plan was simple and practicable. De Lussan,
Teach, Velsers and the rest would fall in with it gladly. There would
be enough rakehelly, degraded specimens of humanity, hungry and
thirsty, lustful and covetous, in Port Royal--which was the wickedest
and most flourishing city on the American hemisphere at the time--to
accompany them and insure success, provided only there would be reward
in women and liquor and treasure. He would do it. They would all go
a-cruising once more, and then--they would see.

He stayed a long time on the wharf, looking out over the water,
arranging the details of the scheme outlined by Morgan so brilliantly,
and it was late when he returned to the parlor of the Blue Anchor Inn.
Half the company were drunk on the floor under the tables. The rest were
singing, or shou