coat, and in a
fashion that gave me goose-flesh underneath the button, in spite of
all my mingled emotions. Had I not "halted," as ordered, to the extent
of sitting on quietly as I was, he no doubt would have pulled the
lanyard, with consequences such as I do not care to contemplate, and
mayhap to the effect that this somewhat singular story would never
have been written.

"Halt, Sirrah!" began the pirate leader again, "or I will blow you out
of the water!"

I sat for a moment regarding him, my chin in my hand.

"No," said I at last; "I already am out of the water, my friend. But,
prithee, have a care of yonder lanyard, else, gadzooks! you may belike
blow me off the bank and into the water."

This speech of mine seemed as much to disconcert the pirate chieftain
as had his me. He stood erect, shifting his Long Tom, to the great
ease of my waistcoat button.

"Won't you heave to, and put off a small boat for a parley?" I
inquired.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH I HOLD A PARLEY

The two pirates turned to each other for consultation, irresolute, but
evidently impressed by the fact that their prize did not purpose to
hoist sail and make a run for it.

"What ho! mates?" demanded the captain, in as gruff a voice as he
could compass: "Ye've heard his speech, and he has struck his flag."

"Suppose the villain plays us false," rejoined the "mates" or rather,
the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was
difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I
rarely had smiled at all.

The captain turned to one side, so that now I could see both him and
his crew. The leader was as fine a specimen of boy as you could have
asked, sturdy of bare legs, brown of face, red of hair, ragged and
tumbled of garb. His crew was active though slightly less robust, a
fair-haired, light-skinned chap, blue-eyed, and somewhat better clad
than his companion. There was something winning about his face. At a
glance I knew his soul. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, in
the bud. My heart leaped out to him instinctively in a great impulse
of sympathy and understanding. Indeed, suddenly, I felt the blood
tingle through my hair. I looked upon life as I had not these three
years. The imagination of Youth, the glamour of Adventure, lay here
before me; things I cruelly had missed these last few years, it seemed
to me.

"How, now, shipmates?" I remarked mildly. "Wouldst doubt the faith of
one who him