lf like the Honorable; I ain't got a title, nor girly pink
cheeks, nor fine gentleman ways. No walks with the likes o' me, no
tatey-tates in the woods--oh, no! Well, it's goin' to be another
story now, girlie. I guess you can learn to like my looks, with a
little help from my fist now and then, jest as well as you done the
Honorable's. I guess it won't be long before I have you crawlin'
on your knees to me for a word o' kindness. I guess--"

"Aw, stow that soft stuff, Magnus," advised Slinker. "You can do
your spoonin' with the gal later on. We're here to git that gold,
and don't you forget it. Plenty o' time afterwards to spark the
wimmen."

"That's the talk," chimed in Blackbeard. "Don't run us on a lee
shore for the sake of a skirt. Skirts is thicker'n herring in
every port, ain't they?"

"I got a score to settle with this one," growled Magnus sullenly,
but his grasp loosened on my arm, and I slipped from him and fled
to Aunt Jane--yes, to Aunt Jane--and clung to her convulsively.
The poor little woman was crying, of course, making a low
inarticulate whimper like a frightened child. Miss
Higglesby-Browne seemed to have petrified. Her skin had a withered
look, and a fine network of lines showed on it, suddenly clear,
like a tracery on parchment. Beyond her I saw the face of Dugald
Shaw, gray with a steely wrath. A gun had been trained anew on him
and Cuthbert, and the bearer thereof was arguing with them
profanely. I suppose the prisoners had threatened outbreak at the
spectacle of the chin-chucking.

No one had bothered to secure Cookie, and he knelt among the pots
and pans of his open-air kitchen, pouring forth petitions in a
steady stream. Blackboard, who seemed a jovial brute, burst into a
loud guffaw.

"Ha, ha! Look at old Soot-and-Cinders gittin' hisself ready for
glory!" He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which
Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge.
"Looky here, darky, git busy dishin' up the grub, will you? I
could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we been livin'
on."

Blackbeard, whom his companions addressed indiscriminately as
"Captain," or "Tony," seemed to exercise a certain authority. He
went over to the prisoners on the log and inspected their bonds.

"You'll do; can't git loose nohow," he announced. Then, with a
savage frown, "But no monkey business. First o' that I see, its a
dose o' cold lead for youse, savvy?"

He