hooner.

The decision was soon made as to the pirates, and it was that they
should be hanged, one and all, from the yards of their own vessel. As
to the vessel herself, it took somewhat longer to arrive at an
agreement; but in view of the fact that she was little better than a
shattered wreck, and that, even if she were to be repaired, they had
lost so many hands that they could not very well spare the men to handle
her, it was finally decided that she should be destroyed.

This business settled, the council broke up, and the members of it went
on deck. The flag-ship's boats were then manned, and the officers of
the fleet went on board the schooner. Orders had meanwhile been given,
on board the vessels of the squadron, that their crews should turn up to
witness the execution. The captives were then brought up on deck, and
Cavendish himself read the sentence over to them, and bade them prepare
for death. They met the announcement with the utmost callousness. One
or two of them exchanged remarks in a low tone of voice, and one man was
actually heard to laugh outright. As for Jose Leirya, he heard the
sentence with absolute indifference, and, when asked whether he had
anything to say, answered not a word.

A whip was now rove from each of the fore yard-arms of the _Black
Pearl_, and a gun on the forecastle loaded with a blank charge. A
number of men were then detailed to run aft with the tail end of the
whip as soon as the noose should have been fitted round each man's neck.

Mr Cavendish decided that he would hang the captain first, so that
every survivor of his crew might witness the death of their leader.

All being now in readiness, four seamen walked up to Jose Leirya and,
stooping, cut the bonds that secured his feet. The pirate stood still
for a moment to allow the blood to circulate once more freely through
his limbs, and then, bound though his arms were, he wrenched himself
free from the grasp of the four seamen and made a furious dash towards
the side of his ship, actually succeeding in scrambling on to her
bulwark, with the evident intention of drowning himself, and thus
evading the indignity of death by hanging.

The seamen, however, who had been hurled right and left by his herculean
effort, closed upon him promptly, and, with very little ceremony, hauled
him off with violence, hurling him to the deck and themselves falling on
the top of him and holding him down with their weight. Yet once again