two hours or thereabouts, so
if you are found here you will be taken and handed as sure as I ain't
hanged yet. Now ain't this important news, and worth all I asked for
it?"

"It certainly is, if it is true, boy."

"Oh, I'll prove it, for I always goes with father, and he trusts me with
everything. I saw the paper signed. The king's ship is called the
Vestal, and the captain who signed the paper signed it Philip Musgrave."

"Indeed," said I, turning away, for I did not wish the boy to perceive
my emotion at this announcement. I recovered myself as soon as I could,
and said to him, "Boy, I will keep my promise. Do you stay below, and I
will go on deck and plead for your life."

"Mayn't I go on deck for a bit?" said he.

"What to wish your father good-bye? No, no, you had better spare
yourself and him that painful meeting."

"No, I don't want to wish him good-bye,--I'll wait till it's over, only
I never did see a man hanged, and I have a curiosity to have just a
peep."

"Out, you little monster," cried I, running up on deck, for the
information I had received was too important not to be immediately taken
advantage of.

"Well, captain, has the boy saved his father's life?"

"No," replied I, in a loud voice.

"Then, up he goes," said the men, for the halter had been round his neck
and run out to the yard-arm for some time, and the men had manned the
rope, only awaiting my return on deck. In a second, the captain of the
Transcendant was swinging in the air, and certainly if ever a scoundrel
merited his fate it was that man. Shortly afterwards I turned round,
and there was the young hopeful looking at his father's body swinging to
and fro with the motion of the vessel.

I looked in vain for a tear in his eye; there was not a symptom of
emotion. Seeing me look sternly at him, he hastened down below again.

"My lads," said I to the men, who were all on deck, "I have received
intelligence of that importance that I recommend that we should cut that
vessel adrift, and make sail without a moment's loss of time."

"What, not plunder?" cried the men, looking at the Transcendant.

"No, not think of it, if you are wise."

At this reply all of the men exclaimed that "that would not do"--"that
plunder they would"--that "I was not the captain of the vessel,"--and
many more expressions, showing how soon a man may lose popularity on
board of a pirate vessel.

"I gave my opinion, my men, and if you will hear why I