eyes fixed on
a point just above the pirate's shoulder, I almost yelled 'Look out!' If
I had, it might have cost me my life right there. He walked along, light
on his toes like a cat, till he stood two feet from us. Then, so fast I
hardly knew what happened, he hit the other man on the chin with his
fist. That was all. The man dropped with his head back against the rail.
And Daggs went off, chuckling to himself but not making any noise. I
don't think he saw me at all, for his attack was more like the work of a
mad dog than of a man.

"I crept away and got below decks as fast as might be, and there I
stayed hidden till after dark, when some of the buccaneers rousted me
out. A keg of rum had been opened in the waist, and the liquor was going
freely. Most of the crew were already drunk, but they had the sense to
chain me by one leg to the foremast, and then made me run back and
forth between them and the barrel. I was only too glad. No cannikin was
skimped while I was at the spigot. I looked around and remembered some
of the wild nights we had seen on the old _Revenge_. And then for the
first time I realized that the deck I stood on was the same! They'd
gotten hold of the old black sloop when she was auctioned at Charles
Town, patched up her bottom and here she was--buccaneering once more!
Where the gang of cut-throats aboard her were gathered, I don't know,
but they put Stede Bonnet's famous crew to shame.

"Pharaoh Daggs was somewhere ashore with two of the crew till nearly
midnight. When he returned, the rest were lying like pigs about the
deck. He had sobered slightly--enough to remember the night's
undertaking--but it was useless to think of rousing those sots to any
sort of endeavor. He kicked one or two of them savagely with his heavy
boot, too, but it got hardly more than a grunt from them.

"He stood there cursing for a minute, then came over and looked at the
shackle that held me to the foremast-foot, and shook it to make sure it
was solid before he went below. He had something done up in a cloth that
he held mighty tenderly, and he seemed in a better humor.

"I curled up on the deck and by wrapping myself in a greatcoat which I
found beside one of the drunken pirates, succeeded in keeping reasonably
warm.

"When morning came Daggs and his mulatto mate managed to wake most of
the men and forced them to get out and forage for wood and water, while
they themselves crossed the ridge to reconnoitre. I think it