I am, a tough old sergeant
in a queen's regiment; but for all that I have been a pirate. The yarn
is a long one, and I can't tell it you now, because just at present, you
see, I have got to go below to look after the dinners of the company,
but the first time as we can get an opportunity for a quiet talk I will
tell it you. But don't you go away and think till then as I was a pirate
from choice. I shouldn't like you to think that of me; there ain't never
no saying at sea what may happen. I might tumble overboard tonight and
get drowned, or one of the convoy might run foul of us and sink us, and
tomorrow you might be alive and I might be dead, and I shouldn't like
you to go on thinking all your life as that Sergeant Edwards had been
a bloody pirate of his own free will. So you just bear in mind, till I
tells you the whole story, as how it was forced upon me. Mind, I don't
say as how I hadn't the choice of death or that, and maybe had you been
in my place you would have chosen death; but, you see, I had never been
brought up as you were. I had had no chances to speak of, and being only
just about your age, I didn't like the thought of dying, so you see I
took to it, making up my mind secret at the same time that the first
chance I had I would slip away from them. I won't tell you more now,
I hain't time; but just you bear that in mind, in case of anything
happening, that if Sergeant Edwards once sailed under the black flag, he
didn't do it willing."

The sergeant now hurried below, leaving Jack wondering over what he
had heard. Some days elapsed before the story was told, for a few hours
later the sky clouded over and the wind rose, and before next morning
the vessel was laboring heavily under double reefed topsails. The
soldiers were all kept below, and there was no possibility of anything
like a quiet talk. The weather had hitherto been so fine and the wind
so light that the vessels had glided over the sea almost without motion,
and very few indeed of those on board had experienced anything of the
usual seasickness; but now, in the stifling atmosphere between decks,
with the vessel rolling and plunging heavily, the greater part were soon
prostrate with seasickness, and even Jack, accustomed to the sea as he
was, succumbed to the unpleasantness of the surroundings.

On the second day of the storm Sergeant Edwards, who had been on deck to
make a report to the captain of the company, was eagerly questioned on
his return