lvets and all
kinds of materials; and as to wine and such like, there was enough
to have lasted them for years, for from first to last it was shown
afterward that those fellows must have captured more nor fifty vessels.
Why they shouldn't have stopped ashore and enjoyed what they got was a
mystery to me. But I suppose they couldn't do without excitement, and
though every man talked of the time when the treasure would be divided
and they were to scatter, I don't suppose as one ever expected as the
time would really come.

"Well, arter everything was on board, and the women and children, the
place was burned, and we sailed for the nearest Spanish port. We had
had a sort of court martial on board the frigate, and two or three young
chaps like myself, and two men as was proved to have been captured in
the pirates' last cruise, and who hadn't been to sea with them or taken
part in any of their bloody doings, was kept on board ship, and the rest
was handed over to the Spanish authorities. Most of them was garroted,
and a few was condemned to work on the roads for life. I and the others
was taken back to England in the frigate, whose foreign time was up,
and when we got to Portsmouth we was drafted into a regiment there, and
lucky we thought ourselves to get off so easy. The captain's wife and
some of the other white women came home to England on board the frigate.
She was very low at first, but she brightened up a good deal toward
the end of the voyage, which lasted two months. She grieved over her
husband, you see, but she couldn't but have felt that it was all for the
best. I heard afterward as how two years after she married Mr. Earnshaw,
who by that time had got to be a captain. So that, you see, my lad, is
how I came to fight under the black flag first and then to be a soldier
of the queen. I didn't mean it to be sich a long yarn, but when I once
began it all came back to me, and you see, I haven't spoken of it for
years. You don't think altogether as I was very wrong, I hope."

"I thank you very much for your story, sergeant," Jack replied. "I only
wish it had been longer; and although it's very easy to say that a man
ought to die rather than consent to be a pirate, I don't think there are
many lads who would choose death if they were placed as you were."

"I am glad you think that, young un; it's always been a sore point with
me, I have done my duty since, and no one can say as he's ever seen
Sergeant Edwards show th