to catch the saucy tartar. But the privateersman headed
for the blue Bay of Bengal; there fell in with an English armed schooner
with a numerous crew; and--although he only had two guns and twenty-six
men aboard his own vessel--he tackled the sailors from the chilly isle
like a terrier shaking a rat. There was a stiff little fight upon the
shimmering waves of the Indian Ocean. When night descended the
Britisher had struck and nineteen blood-stained ruffians from the
privateer took possession of the battered hulk, singing a song which
ran:

"For it's fourteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum."

Lafitte was now feeling better; his men had been fed; he had good
plunder; and he possessed two staunch, little craft.

"Let's bear away for India, my Hearties," cried he, "and we'll hit
another Englishman and take her."

What he had said soon came to pass, for, when off the hazy, low-lying
coast of Bengal, a rakish East Indiaman came lolling by, armed with
twenty-six twelve-pounders and manned with one hundred and fifty men.
A bright boarding upon her stern-posts flaunted the truly Eastern
name: the _Pagoda_.

The dull-witted Britishers had no suspicions of the weak,
Puritan-looking, little two-'undred tonner of Lafitte's, as she glided
in close; luffed; and bobbed about, as a voice came:

"Sa-a-y! Want a pilot fer the Ganges?"

There was no reply for a while. Then a voice shrilled back,

"Come up on th' port quarter. That's just what we've been lookin'
for."

The fat _Pagoda_ ploughed listlessly onward, as the
unsuspicious-looking pilot plodded up on the port side; in fact, most
of the crew were dozing comfortably under awnings on the deck, when a
shot rang out. Another and another followed, and, with a wild,
ear-splitting whoop, the followers of Lafitte clambered across the
rail; dirks in their mouths; pistols in their right hands, and
cutlasses in their left.

Now was a short and bloodless fight. Taken completely by surprise, the
Englishmen threw up their hands and gave in only too willingly. With
smiles of satisfaction upon their faces, the seamen of the bad man
from St. Malo soon hauled two kegs of spirits upon the decks, and held
high revel upon the clean boarding of the rich and valuable prize. The
_Pagoda_ was re-christened _The Pride of St. Malo_, and soon went off
privateering upon her own hook; while Lafitte headed back for St.
Thomas: well-fed--even sleek with good living-