I. "I am more careless of
taking treasure than of capturing a certain maiden who flees before us
yonder on a swift craft, speedier than our own. Lay me alongside of
her, this week, next month, this winter, and my share of the other
booty shall be yours!"

"Black Bart," said Lafitte, "I knew something was sort of botherin'
you. So, it's you for the fair captive, huh?"

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH MY PLOT THICKENS

We sped on now steadily, day by delightful day, and ever arose in my
soul new wonders at the joy of life itself, things that had escaped me
in my plodding business life. Now and again, I took from my pocket the
little volume which always went with me on the stream when I angled,
and which I confess sometimes charmed me away from the stream to some
shaded nook where I might read old Omar undisturbed--as now I might,
with L'Olonnois at the masthead and Lafitte at the wheel. And always
these wise, reckless, joyous pages of the old philosopher spelled to
me "Haste! Haste!"

"Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop.
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one."

"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing!"

What truth, what absolute truth of the red-hot spur lay in those
words, lesson direst to me! What had my life been, plodding in books
to learn to keep by forms of law the booty my father had stolen? Away
with it, then, for now the Bird of Time was on the wing! Let me forget
the wasted years, spent in adding dollar to dollar; for what could the
highest pile of dollars mean to a man who had missed what Lafitte and
L'Olonnois and Omar had in their teaching? The booty of the world, the
pearls of price, the casks of the Wine of Life, are his only who takes
them. They can not be bought, can not be given. "Oh, haste! Jean
Lafitte, for my new knowledge indeed eats at my soul. Hasten, for the
Bird of Life is on the wing, L'Olonnois." So I spoke to them; and
they, feeling it all a part of the play, gravely answered in kind, to
what end that any who sought to stay Black Bart and his crew did so at
peril of their blood.

We came, I knew not after how many days forgotten in detail--after
passing, each avoided as a pestilence, many cities prosperous in
commerce--alongside the river po