about in the
waters surrounding the Bahama Islands. In that time he ran to earth and
dispersed a dozen nests of pirates. He destroyed no less than fifteen
piratical crafts of all sizes, from a large half-decked whaleboat to a
three-hundred-ton barkentine. The name of the Yankee became a terror
to every sea wolf in the western tropics, and the waters of the Bahama
Islands became swept almost clean of the bloody wretches who had so
lately infested it.

But the one freebooter of all others whom he sought--Capt. Jack
Scarfield--seemed to evade him like a shadow, to slip through his
fingers like magic. Twice he came almost within touch of the famous
marauder, both times in the ominous wrecks that the pirate captain had
left behind him. The first of these was the water-logged remains of a
burned and still smoking wreck that he found adrift in the great Bahama
channel. It was the Water Witch, of Salem, but he did not learn her
tragic story until, two weeks later, he discovered a part of her crew
at Port Maria, on the north coast of Jamaica. It was, indeed, a dreadful
story to which he listened. The castaways said that they of all the
vessel's crew had been spared so that they might tell the commander of
the Yankee, should they meet him, that he might keep what he found, with
Captain Scarfield's compliments, who served it up to him hot cooked.

Three weeks later he rescued what remained of the crew of the shattered,
bloody hulk of the Baltimore Belle, eight of whose crew, headed by the
captain, had been tied hand and foot and heaved overboard. Again, there
was a message from Captain Scarfield to the commander of the Yankee that
he might season what he found to suit his own taste.

Mainwaring was of a sanguine disposition, with fiery temper. He swore,
with the utmost vehemence, that either he or John Scarfield would have
to leave the earth.

He had little suspicion of how soon was to befall the ominous
realization of his angry prophecy.

At that time one of the chief rendezvous of the pirates was the little
island of San Jose, one of the southernmost of the Bahama group. Here,
in the days before the coming of the Yankee, they were wont to put in
to careen and clean their vessels and to take in a fresh supply of
provisions, gunpowder, and rum, preparatory to renewing their attacks
upon the peaceful commerce circulating up and down outside the islands,
or through the wide stretches of the Bahama channel.

Mainwaring had ma