cal
vessels: the _Revenge_ and the _Flying King_, had been cruising off
the coast of Brazil, just before his advent. Fighting in partnership,
they had taken two Portuguese schooners, and were making off with
them, when a Portuguese man-o'-warsman came booming along under full
canvas. She was an unwelcome guest.

Setting all sail the two pirates had attempted to get away and the
_Revenge_ succeeded in doing so. Two days later a typhoon struck her
and she was soon swinging bottom upwards, with the kittiwakes
shrieking over her barnacled keel.

But the revengeful man-o'-warsman ploughed relentlessly after the
_Flying King_, which could not fly quite fast enough, this time,
and--in despair--was run, bows on, upon the shore, where the crew
scrambled to the sand in a desperate endeavor to get away. The sailors
from the man-o'-warsman were speedy; they shot twelve of the
buccaneers, took the rest prisoners (there were seventy in all) and
hanged thirty-eight to the yard-arm. News of this came to Captain
England when he neared the tropic coast of Brazil.

"It's all in a life-time," said he. "If I'm captured, of course I'll
swing. But, meanwhile, I hope to have a good life."

Not many days afterwards he heard the welcome sound of:

"Sail ho! Off the port bow!"

And raising the glass to his eye discovered two fat,
prosperous-looking merchant ships, slipping quietly along like an old
maid fresh from market.

"Slap on all sail and give chase!" was bellowed out in stentorian
tones, and the _Royal James_ was soon fairly boiling along with every
stitch aloft, which she could carry.

As she neared the merchantmen, the names came plainly to view: the
_Peterborough_ of Bristol, and the _Victory_ of Liverpool, but a shot
screamed across the bowsprit of the latter and victory was turned into
defeat. A white flag was fluttering at her mainmast in a moment, for
the Captain had no stomach for a fight.

"Egad, it's a pirate," said the good seaman in despair, as the black
flag with the skull and cross-bones fluttered from the rigging of his
capturer. "I thought she was a privateersman under Letters of Marque.
It's all up with us."

As the boat-load of boarders came bobbing alongside he cried out,

"Mercy! Have mercy upon the souls of these poor wretches who sail with
me."

The pirates guffawed, helped themselves to everything of value, and
took the merchantmen with them to the coast of Brazil, where the crew
were allowed to esca