en
medicine and food enough to set him upon his legs, and had worked for
the surgeon about a year, that kind master offered him his liberty if he
would promise, as soon as he could earn the money, to pay him one
hundred dollars, which would be a profit to his owner, who had paid but
seventy dollars for him. This offer, of course, Esquemeling accepted
with delight, and having made the bargain, he stepped forth upon the
warm sands of the island of Tortuga a free and happy man. But he was as
poor as a church mouse. He had nothing in the world but the clothes on
his back, and he saw no way in which he could make money enough to keep
himself alive until he had paid for himself. He tried various ways of
support, but there was no opening for a young business man in that
section of the country, and at last he came to the conclusion that there
was only one way by which he could accomplish his object, and he
therefore determined to enter into "the wicked order of pirates or
robbers at sea."

It must have been a strange thing for a man accustomed to pens and ink,
to yard-sticks and scales, to feel obliged to enroll himself into a
company of bloody, big-bearded pirates, but a man must eat, and
buccaneering was the only profession open to our ex-clerk. For some
reason or other, certainly not on account of his bravery and daring,
Esquemeling was very well received by the pirates of Tortuga. Perhaps
they liked him because he was a mild-mannered man and so different from
themselves. Nobody was afraid of him, every one felt superior to him,
and we are all very apt to like people to whom we feel superior.

As for Esquemeling himself, he soon came to entertain the highest
opinion of his pirate companions. He looked upon the buccaneers who had
distinguished themselves as great heroes, and it must have been
extremely gratifying to those savage fellows to tell Esquemeling all the
wonderful things they had done. In the whole of the West Indies there
was no one who was in the habit of giving such intelligent attention to
the accounts of piratical depredations and savage sea-fights, as was
Esquemeling and if he had demanded a salary as a listener there is no
doubt that it would have been paid to him.

It was not long before his intense admiration of the buccaneers and
their performances began to produce in him the feeling that the history
of these great exploits should not be lost to the world, and so he set
about writing the lives and adven