est steed a man can bestride. Now at
least it did me good service. With oaths and grunts of admiration
the pirates stayed where they were, and went about their business of
launching the boats and stripping the body of Red Gil, while the man in
black and silver, the Spaniard, the two gravediggers, the knave with the
wounded shoulder, and myself walked briskly up the beach.

With these five at my heels I strode up to the dying fire and to those
who had sprung to their feet at our approach. "Sparrow," I said easily,
"luck being with us as usual, I have fallen in with a party of rovers.
I have told them who I am,--that Kirby, to wit, whom an injurious world
calls the blackest pirate unhanged,--and have recounted to them how the
great galleon which I took some months ago went down yesterday with all
on board, you and I with these others being the sole survivors. By dint
of a little persuasion they have elected me their captain, and we will
go on board directly and set sail for the Indies, a hunting ground which
we never should have left. You need not look so blank; you shall be my
mate and right hand still." I turned to the five who formed my escort.
"This, gentlemen, is my mate, Jeremy Sparrow by name, who hath a taste
for divinity that in no wise interferes with his taste for a galleon
or a guarda costa. This man, Diccon Demon by name, was of my crew. The
gentleman without a sword is my prisoner, taken by me from the last ship
I sunk. How he, an Englishman, came to be upon a Spanish bark I have not
found leisure to inquire. The lady is my prisoner, also."

"Sure by rights she should be gaoler and hold all men's hearts in ward,"
said Paradise, with a low bow to my unfortunate captive.

While he spoke a most remarkable transformation was going on. The
minister's grave, rugged, and deeply lined face smoothed itself and shed
ten years at least; in the eyes that I had seen wet with noble tears a
laughing devil now lurked, while his strong mouth became a loose-lipped,
devil-may-care one. His head with its aureole of bushy, grizzled hair
set itself jauntily upon one side, and from it and from his face and his
whole great frame breathed a wicked jollity quite indescribable.

"Odsbodikins, captain!" he cried. "Kirby's luck!--'t will pass into a
saw! Adzooks! and so you're captain once more, and I'm mate once more,
and we've a ship once more, and we're off once more

sail the Spanish Main

give the Spaniard pain,