was a good stake upon the table,
for the sailors had tried on this last night to win their losses back
from their passenger. Suddenly he threw his cards down, and swept all
the money into the pocket of his long-flapped silken waistcoat.

"The game's mine!" said he.

"Heh, Sir Charles, not so fast!" cried Captain Scarrow; "you have not
played out the hand, and we are not the losers."

"Sink you for a liar!" said the Governor. "I tell you I _have_ played
out the hand, and that you _are_ a loser." He whipped off his wig and
his glasses as he spoke, and there was a high, bald forehead, and a pair
of shifty blue eyes with the red rims of a bull terrier.

"Good God!" cried the mate. "It's Sharkey!"

The two sailors sprang from their seats, but the big American castaway
had put his huge back against the cabin door, and he held a pistol in
each of his hands. The passenger had also laid a pistol upon the
scattered cards in front of him, and he burst into his high, neighing
laugh. "Captain Sharkey is the name, gentlemen," said he, "and this is
Roaring Ned Galloway, the quartermaster of the _Happy Delivery_.
We made it hot, and so they marooned us: me on a dry Tortuga cay, and
him in an oarless boat. You dogs--you poor, fond, water-hearted dogs--
we hold you at the end of our pistols!"

"You may shoot, or you may not!" cried Scarrow, striking his hand upon
the breast of his frieze jacket. "If it's my last breath, Sharkey, I
tell you that you are a bloody rogue and miscreant, with a halter and
hell-fire in store for you!"

"There's a man of spirit, and one of my own kidney, and he's going to
make a very pretty death of it!" cried Sharkey. "There's no one aft
save the man at the wheel, so you may keep your breath, for you'll need
it soon. Is the dinghy astern, Ned?"

"Ay, ay, captain!"

"And the other boats scuttled?"

"I bored them all in three places."

"Then we shall have to leave you, Captain Scarrow. You look as if you
hadn't quite got your bearings yet. Is there anything you'd like to ask
me?"

"I believe you're the devil himself!" cried the captain. "Where is the
Governor of St. Kitt's?"

"When last I saw him his Excellency was in bed with his throat cut.
When I broke prison I learnt from my friends--for Captain Sharkey has
those who love him in every port--that the Governor was starting for
Europe under a master who had never seen him. I climbed his verandah,
and I paid him the little debt tha