t bloody
battles against the pirates if you really mean to chastise them. But I
cannot promise to attack Captain Bonnet. He is a friend of mine."

"You shall come to see him hanged," shouted Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes,
very red in the face. "The merchant ship _Plymouth Adventure_ is
expected soon, and you and I shall take passage in her for Merry
England, thanking heaven to see the last of the barbarous Carolinas for
a time."

"Thank your own thanks, sir," grumbled Jack. "Captain Bonnet may be a
pirate but he is not nearly so heartless as my own uncle. He asked me to
dinner at the tavern. I am faint for lack of food. My stomach sticks to
my ribs. 'Tis a great pity you were never a growing boy yourself. For a
platter of cold meat and bread I will take my oath to chop you a pile of
firewood as high as the kitchen."

The gaoler relented and bustled out to ransack the pantry. Having
demolished a joint and a loaf, young John Spencer Cockrell was in a mood
much less melancholy. In fact, when he swung the axe behind the fence of
hewn palings, he was humming the refrain of that wicked ditty: "_Yo, Ho,
with the Rum Below!_" He was tremendously sorry that he had been
snatched away from the engaging society of Captain Bonnet and his wild
crew, and the future had a gloomy aspect, but even these grievances were
forgotten when he descried, in a lane which led past the house, the
lovely maid whose cause he had championed at the wharf.

She was Dorothy, only daughter of Colonel Malcolm Stuart who commanded
the militia forces of the Colony. Although she was the elder by two or
three years and gave herself the airs of a young lady, Jack Cockrell
hopelessly, secretly adored her. It was an anti-climax for a hero to be
serving out his sentence at the wood-pile and he turned his back to the
gate while he made the chips fly. But Dorothy had no intention of
ignoring him. She paused with a smile so winsome that Jack's heart
fluttered and he dropped the axe to grasp her outstretched hand. He
squeezed it so hard that Dorothy winced as she said:

"What a masterful man it is, but please don't crush my poor fingers. I
fled from those pirates at the wharf, Jack, instead of waiting to offer
you my most humble thanks. Will you accept them now? They come straight
from the heart."

For such a reward as this Jack would have fought a dozen pirates. Baring
his head, he murmured bashfully:

"A trifling service, Mistress Dorothy, and 'tis my devout ho