storm. He was
walking up the shore homeward when he became aware that at some
distance ahead of him there was a ship's boat drawn up on the little
narrow beach, and a group of men clustered about it. He hurried
forward with a good deal of curiosity to see who had landed, but it
was not until he had come close to them that he could distinguish who
and what they were. Then he knew that it must be a party who had come
off the pirate sloop. They had evidently just landed, and two men were
lifting out a chest from the boat. One of them was a negro, naked to
the waist, and the other was a white man in his shirt sleeves, wearing
petticoat breeches, a Monterey cap upon his head, a red bandanna
handkerchief around his neck, and gold earrings in his ears. He had a
long, plaited queue hanging down his back, and a great sheath knife
dangling from his side. Another man, evidently the captain of the
party, stood at a little distance as they lifted the chest out of the
boat. He had a cane in one hand and a lighted lantern in the other,
although the moon was shining as bright as day. He wore jack boots and
a handsome laced coat, and he had a long, drooping mustache that
curled down below his chin. He wore a fine, feathered hat, and his
long black hair hung down upon his shoulders.

All this Tom Chist could see in the moonlight that glinted and
twinkled upon the gilt buttons of his coat.

They were so busy lifting the chest from the boat that at first they
did not observe that Tom Chist had come up and was standing there. It
was the white man with the long, plaited queue and the gold earrings
that spoke to him. "Boy, what do you want here, boy?" he said, in a
rough, hoarse voice. "Where d'ye come from?" And then dropping his end
of the chest, and without giving Tom time to answer, he pointed off
down the beach, and said, "You'd better be going about your own
business, if you know what's good for you; and don't you come back, or
you'll find what you don't want waiting for you."

[Illustration: WHO SHALL BE CAPTAIN?]

Tom saw in a glance that the pirates were all looking at him, and
then, without saying a word, he turned and walked away. The man who
had spoken to him followed him threateningly for some little distance,
as though to see that he had gone away as he was bidden to do. But
presently he stopped, and Tom hurried on alone, until the boat and the
crew and all were dropped away behind and lost in the moonlight night.
Then he h