shelter and something to
eat, and he soon began to make himself very much at home in the streets
of Campeachy.

It was a very gay time in the town, and, as everybody seemed to be
happy, L'Olonnois was very glad to join in the general rejoicing, and
these hilarities gave him particular pleasure as he found out that he
was the cause of them. The buccaneers who had been captured, and who
were imprisoned in the fortress, had been interrogated over and over
again by the Spanish officials in regard to L'Olonnois, their commander,
and, as they had invariably answered that he had been killed, the
Spanish were forced to believe the glad tidings, and they celebrated the
death of the monster as the greatest piece of public good fortune which
could come to their community. They built bonfires, they sang songs
about the death of the black-hearted buccaneer, and services of
thanksgiving were held in their churches.

All this was a great delight to L'Olonnois, who joined hands with the
young men and women, as they danced around the bonfires; he assisted in
a fine bass voice in the choruses which told of his death and his
dreadful doom, and he went to church and listened to the priests and the
people as they gave thanks for their deliverance from his enormities.

But L'Olonnois did not waste all his time chuckling over the baseless
rejoicings of the people of the town. He made himself acquainted with
some of the white slaves, men who had been brought from England, and
finding some of them very much discontented with their lot, he ventured
to tell them that he was one of the pirates who had escaped, and offered
them riches and liberty if they would join him in a scheme he had
concocted. It would have been easy enough for him to get away from the
town by himself, but this would have been of no use to him unless he
obtained some sort of a vessel, and some men to help him navigate it. So
he proposed to the slaves that they should steal a small boat belonging
to the master of one of them, and in this, under cover of the night, the
little party safely left Campeachy and set sail for Tortuga, which, as
we have told, was then the headquarters of the buccaneers, and "the
common place of refuge of all sorts or wickedness, and the seminary, as
it were, of all manner of pirates."

Chapter XIII

A Resurrected Pirate

When L'Olonnois arrived at Tortuga he caused great astonishment among
his old associates; that he had come back a com