forth a
small roll of parchment.

"Here 'tis, Martin," says he softly, "here's that so many lusty men
have perished for--not much to look at, shipmate, torn, d'ye see and
stained, but here's wealth, Martin, fame, honours, all the vices and
all the evils, and chief among 'em--vengeance!"

So saying, he unrolled the small scrap of parchment, and holding it
before me, I saw it was a rough chart.

"Take it, Martin, and study it the while I tell you my story."

CHAPTER XI

ADAM PENFEATHER, HIS NARRATIVE

"Mine is a strange, wild story, Martin, but needs must I tell it and in
few words as may be. Fifteen years agone (or thereabouts) I became one
of that league known as the Brotherhood of the Coast and swore
comradeship with one Nicholas Frant, a Kent man, even as I. Now though
I was full young and a cautious man, yet, having a natural hatred of
Spaniards and their ways, I wrought right well against them, and was
mighty diligent in many desperate affrays against their ships and along
the Coast. 'Twas I (and my good comrade Nick Frant) with sixteen lusty
lads took sea in an open pinnace and captured the great treasure
galleon 'Dolores del Principe' off Carthagena, and what with all this,
Martin, and my being blessed with some education and a gift of adding
two and two together, I got me rapid advancement in the Brotherhood
until--well, shipmate, I that am poor and solitary was once rich and
with nigh a thousand bully fellows at command. And then it was that I
fell in with that arch-devil, that master rogue whose deeds had long
been a terror throughout the Main, a fellow more bloody than any
Spaniard, more treacherous than any Portugal, and more cruel than any
Indian--Inca, Mosquito, Maya or Aztec, and this man an Englishman, and
one of birth and breeding, who hid his identity under the name of
Bartlemy. I met him first in Tortuga where we o' the Brotherhood lay,
six stout ships and nigh four hundred men convened for an expedition
against Santa Catalina, and this for two reasons, first, because 'twas
a notable rich city, and second, to rescue certain of the Brotherhood
that lay there waiting to be burnt at the next auto-de-fe. Well,
Martin, 'tis upon a certain evening that this Bartlemy comes aboard my
ship and with him his mate, by name Tressady. And never was greater
difference than 'twixt these two, Tressady being a great, wild fellow
with a steel hook in place of his left hand, d'ye see, and Bartlemy a
sle