From _Blackwood's Magazine_. By ARTHUR HUNT CHUTE.

The Last of the Sea-Rovers: The Riff Coast Pirates 312
From the _Nautical Magazine_. By W. B. LORD.

GREAT PIRATE STORIES

THE PICCAROON[1]

MICHAEL SCOTT

"Ours the wild life in tumult still to range."--_The Corsair._

We returned to Carthagena, to be at hand should any opportunity occur
for Jamaica, and were lounging about one forenoon on the fortifications,
looking with sickening hearts out to seaward, when a voice struck up the
following negro ditty close to us:--

"Fader was a Corramantee,
Moder was a Mingo,
Black picaniny buccra wantee,
So dem sell a me, Peter, by jingo.
Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery."

"Well sung, Massa Bungo!" exclaimed Mr. Splinter; "where do you hail
from, my hearty?"

"Hillo! Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow. Who you yousef, eh?"

"Why, Peter," continued the lieutenant, "don't you know me?"

"Cannot say dat I do," rejoined the negro, very gravely, without lifting
his head, as he sat mending his jacket in one of the embrasures near the
water-gate of the arsenal--"Hab not de honour of your acquaintance,
sir."

He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be called:--

"Mammy Sally's daughter
Lose him shoe in an old canoe
Dat lay half full of water,
And den she knew not what to do.
Jiggery, jig----"

"Confound your jiggery, jiggery, sir! But I know you well enough, my
man; and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieutenant Splinter of the
Torch, one would think?"

However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not known us; for
the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to unlace his legs from
under him, as he sat tailor-fashion, he fairly capsized out of his
perch, and toppled down on his nose--a feature, fortunately, so
flattened by the hand of nature, that I question if it could have been
rendered more obtuse had he fallen out of the maintop on a timber-head,
or a marine officer's.

"Eh!--no--yes, him sure enough; and who is de picaniny hofficer--Oh! I
see, Massa Tom Cringle? Garamighty, gentlemen, where have you drop from?
Where is de old Torch? Many a time hab I, Peter Mangrove, pilot to Him
Britannic Majesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst de
keys at Port Royal!"

"Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the coral reefs,
Peter?"

His Majesty's pilot gave a knowing