ermination compared to his fierce hatred. He was therefore able,
at last, to persuade them into a surly willingness to accept Morgan as
their captain in this new enterprise. Indeed, without him they could do
nothing, for there was no one who possessed the ability or experience to
lead them save he. The best men of the old stamp were now in the South
Seas and far away; they had been driven from the Caribbean. It was not
difficult for Hornigold to show them that it must be Morgan or no one.

Their feelings of animosity were, perforce, sunk beneath the surface,
although they smouldered still within their breasts. They would go with
him, they said. But let him look to himself, they swore threateningly.
If he betrayed them again, there were men among them who would kill him
as remorselessly as they would stamp on a centipede. If he behaved
himself and the expedition on which he was to lead them proved
successful, they might forgive him--all but old Hornigold. Truth to
tell, there was no one among them who felt himself so wronged or so
badly treated as the one-eyed envenomed sailor.

The bulk of the party, which numbered perhaps one hundred men, were
simply plain, ordinary thieves, cut-throats, broken-down seamen, land
sharks and rascals. Not much was to be expected of them. They were not
of the stuff of which the old-time buccaneers had been made, but they
were the best to be obtained at that time in Port Royal. Even they would
not have been so easily assembled had they realized quite what was
expected of them. They knew, of course, that they were committing
themselves to some nefarious undertaking, but to each recruit had been
vouchsafed only enough information to get him to come to the
rendezvous--no more. They were a careless, drunken, dissolute lot.

By Hornigold's orders they were told off in five parties of about twenty
each, commanded respectively by himself, Velsers, Raveneau, the
Brazilian, and the last by Teach, who, though the youngest of the
leaders, had a character for daring wickedness that would stop at
nothing. With much difficulty the boatswain had succeeded in obtaining
five boats, each capable of carrying one band. Every one brought his own
arms, and in general these men did not lack a sufficiency of weapons.
Those who were deficient, however, were supplied from a scanty stock
which the leaders had managed to procure.

All was in readiness, when one of the men who had been stationed on the
extreme edge