worst of all, the lonely outcast pirate, the bloody Ishmael
of the seas, at war with the whole human race. This was the vile brood
which the early eighteenth century had spawned forth, and of them all
there was none who could compare in audacity, wickedness, and evil
repute with the unutterable Sharkey.

It was early in May, in the year 1720, that _The Happy Delivery_ lay
with her fore-yard aback some five leagues west of the Windward Passage,
waiting to see what rich, helpless craft the trade-wind might bring down
to her.

Three days she had lain there, a sinister black speck, in the centre of
the great sapphire circle of the ocean. Far to the south-east the low
blue hills of Hispaniola showed up on the skyline.

Hour by hour as he waited without avail, Sharkey's savage temper had
risen, for his arrogant spirit chafed against any contradiction, even
from Fate itself. To his quartermaster, Ned Galloway, he had said
that night, with his odious neighing laugh, that the crew of the next
captured vessel should answer to him for having kept him waiting so
long.

The cabin of the pirate barque was a good-sized room, hung with
much tarnished finery, and presenting a strange medley of luxury and
disorder. The panelling of carved and polished sandal-wood was blotched
with foul smudges and chipped with bullet-marks fired in some drunken
revelry.

Rich velvets and laces were heaped upon the brocaded settees, while
metal-work and pictures of great price filled every niche and corner,
for anything which caught the pirate's fancy in the sack of a hundred
vessels was thrown haphazard into his chamber. A rich, soft carpet
covered the floor, but it was mottled with wine-stains and charred with
burned tobacco.

Above, a great brass hanging-lamp threw a brilliant yellow light
upon this singular apartment, and upon the two men who sat in their
shirt-sleeves with the wine between them, and the cards in their hands,
deep in a game of piquet. Both were smoking long pipes, and the thin
blue reek filled the cabin and floated through the skylight above them,
which, half opened, disclosed a slip of deep violet sky spangled with
great silver stars.

Ned Galloway, the quartermaster, was a huge New England wastrel, the one
rotten branch upon a goodly Puritan family tree. His robust limbs and
giant frame were the heritage of a long line of God-fearing ancestors,
while his black savage heart was all his own. Bearded to the temples,
with fier