ed to find that there were no guns or
carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more of the appearance of
a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness
of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as
well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they
had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth.
The masts were clean-scraped and varnished, except at the cross-trees and
truck, which were painted black. The standing and running rigging was in
the most perfect order, and the sails white as snow. In short,
everything, from the single narrow red stripe on her low black hull to
the trucks on her tapering masts, evinced an amount of care and strict
discipline that would have done credit to a ship of the Royal Navy. There
was nothing lumbering or unseemly about the vessel, excepting, perhaps, a
boat, which lay on the deck with its keel up between the fore and main
masts. It seemed disproportionately large for the schooner; but, when I
saw that the crew amounted to between thirty and forty men, I concluded
that this boat was held in reserve, in case of any accident compelling
the crew to desert the vessel.

As I have before said, the costumes of the men were similar to that of
the captain. But in head gear they differed not only from him but from
each other, some wearing the ordinary straw hat of the merchant service,
while others wore cloth caps and red worsted night-caps. I observed that
all their arms were sent below; the captain only retaining his cutlass
and a single pistol in the folds of his shawl. Although the captain was
the tallest and most powerful man in the ship, he did not strikingly
excel many of his men in this respect, and the only difference that an
ordinary observer would have noticed was, a certain degree of open
candour, straightforward daring, in the bold, ferocious expression of his
face, which rendered him less repulsive than his low-browed associates,
but did not by any means induce the belief that he was a hero. This look
was, however, the indication of that spirit which gave him the
pre-eminence among the crew of desperadoes who called him captain. He
was a lion-like villain; totally devoid of personal fear, and utterly
reckless of consequences, and, therefore, a terror to his men, who
individually hated him, but unitedly felt it to be their advantage to
have him at their head.

But my though