onnois, who,
propped up against the cockpit combing, was reading aloud to Lafitte
from _The Pirate's Own Book_ as I approached. "Hah! my good man!"
exclaimed the pirate chieftain as he looked at his blade, "unhand the
maid, or by Heaven! your life's blood shall dye the deck where you
stand!"

"Ah, ha! Cal Davidson," said I to myself through my set teeth; "little
do you think that you are discovered in your sins, and little do you
know that the avenger is on your track. But have a care, for Black
Bart and his band pursues you!"

And, seeing that we had now laid in abundance of ship's stores,
including four drums of gasoline; and since the trail of Cal Davidson
was, at least, no wider than the banks of the river down which he had
fled, it looked ill enough for the chances of that robber when the
stanch _Sea Rover_, her flag again aloft and promising no quarter,
chugged out into midstream and took up a pursuit which was to know no
faltering until at last I had learned the truth about the fair captive
of the _Belle Helene_. For indeed, indeed, Omar, and you, too, stout
Lafitte and hardy L'Olonnois, the Bird of Life was on the wing.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH WE CLOSE WITH THE ENEMY

Cal Davidson took on five drums of petrol at Cairo, and a like amount
of champagne at Memphis, and no man may tell what other supplies at
this or that other point along the river. He evidently suspected no
pursuit, or, if he did, was a swaggering varlet enough, for, according
to all accounts which we could get, he loitered and lingered along,
altogether at his leisure, with due attention to social matters at
every port; for if he had not a wife at every port, at least, he had
an acquaintance of business or social sort, so that, one might be
sure, there were few dull moments for him and his party, whether
afloat or ashore. He must have attended a dinner-party and two
theaters at Memphis, and have sailed only after making three thousand
dollars out of a combination in champagne present and cotton future,
whose disgusting details I did not seek to learn. Trust Davidson to
make money, and to make the most of life also as he went along. He
always had the best of everything; and surely now he had, for the
leisurely, ease-seeking _Belle Helene_, not actuated by any vast
motive beyond that of the bee and the honey flower, slipped on down
and ahead with perfect ease, while we, grimy, slow, determined, plowed
on in her wake losing miles each ho