for I was of a
studious frame of mind, fond of learning, and I read and studied much
while out on the hills with the sheep. At this time our family was very
prosperous; but not long afterwards England began to be torn by those
religious struggles, which I doubt not you two older men will well
remember, and we were unfortunate enough to have our lands confiscated
by that tyrant, King Henry the Eighth, and, from a state of prosperity
and the possession of all we could reasonably wish, my family found
itself landless, without money, and even without a home. Besides
myself, there were two other children, both girls; and what worried my
poor parents most was the problem of what to do with us three children.
Fortunately an uncle of my mother--a man whose religious convictions had
a habit of changing with the times--had retained all his property, and
he undertook to take my two young sisters and bring them up as his own
children. This kindness on his part relieved my parents of much
anxiety; but there was still the difficulty as to what to do with me.
At last it was decided, in the absence of anything better, that I should
go to sea; and accordingly, although I did not at all care for the idea,
to sea I had to go, since no other course was open to me. My father
secured me a berth as cabin-boy on board a vessel called the _Delight_,
trading between London and ports on the Mediterranean, and commanded by
a man named Thomas West. It had happened that my father, in the time of
his prosperity, had been able to do this man a service, and that was the
reason why he took me on board his ship; and I am bound to say that he
was always very kind to me. The time for the next voyage came round
only too quickly for my liking, and I bade a sad farewell to my father
and mother, who somehow scraped up money enough to go to London with me
to see me off, little dreaming, poor souls, that they would never see me
again."

The pirate's voice shook slightly; he paused for a moment, and brushed
the back of his hand across his eyes; then, clearing his throat, he
resumed: "We left London in the latter part of the year 1547, when I was
very nearly sixteen years of age, and, sailing down the English Channel,
we entered the Bay of Biscay and touched at our first port, which was
Bordeaux. From thence we sailed again, and--just before Christmas it
was, I remember--we cleared the Straits of Jebel-al-Tarik, as the Moors
call them, and entered the grea