Sir Mortimer

though she bore a charmed life--and her crew that was the refuse of land and sea, used to license, to whom mutiny was no uglier a wor

ed out curses, and the well saw many omens. Dissatisfaction, never far from their unstayed minds, crept at times very near, and superstition sat always amongst them. But they reckoned with a Captain stronger for this voyage than had been Francis Drake or John Hawkins, and stranger than any under whom they had ever sailed. He was so still a man that they knew not how to t

y forth with him such an armament as scarce had been the Cygnet's own. Tier on tier rose the Sea Wraith's ordnance; she carried warlike stores of all sorts that might serve for battle by sea or land. If his money could not buy such men as s

fringing islets where booty might be hidden, and there the deep caves where foregathered many small craft misnamed piratical. "Lord! the Sea Wraith would soon make herself Admiral of that brood, leading them forth from those hidden places to pounce upon Santo Domingo

Captain, seated, sword in hand and hat on h

r, leagues and leagues to the south'ard, until he saw the very roots of the mainland, and the great fish swimming in and out. And a many and a many dead men were there, drawn into ranks, very strange to see, for their swollen flesh yet hung to their bones

have food for dreams--bad dreams, bad dreams, man! Thou fool, have I set thee quaking who, fors

by a hurricane, several of its ships lost, and the remainder widely separated. The hurricane past, forth from an island harbor stole the Sea Wraith that so many storms had beleaguered. Gray as with eld, lonely as the ark, a haggard ship manned by outcasts, she spread her vampire wings and flitted from her enshadowed anchorage. An hour later, like a vampire still, she hooked

a subtle captain, whose very strangeness was his best lieutenant upon that eldritch, nine-lived ship, through days and days of monstrous luck. "Baldry's luck," quoth the mariner who had sailed with the Star, then held his breath and looked askance at his present Captain, who, however, could never have heard him up there on the poop-deck! Natheless that night the man was ordered forward, and finding Sir Mortimer Ferne sitting alone, save for the boy, in the great cabin, was bidde

o these parts and ignorant, he would have sworn a highway to El Dorado itself if that was the point towards which his inquisitor's quiet, unemphatic questions tended; but he knew not, and his lies fell dead before the grave eyes of the man beneath the tree. At last he was tossed aside like a squeezed sponge and the Franciscan beckoned forward, who, being of sturdier make, twisted his thumbs in his rope girdle and prepared to present a blank countenance to those queries of armaments and treasure which an enemy to Spain would naturally make. But the Englishman asked strange questions; so general that they seemed to encompass the mainland from Tres Puntas to Nombre de Dios, and so particular that it was even as if he were interested in the friar himself, his order, and his wanderings from town to town, the sights that he had seen and the people whom he had known. The questions seemed harmless as mother's milk, but the friar was shrewd; moreover, in his youth had been driven to New Spain by flaming zeal for the conversion of countless souls. That fire had burned low, bu

BLANK COUNTENANCE TO

aken," he said. "What, good brother, if I

iar, grimly. "An it please you, I will b

rdiola," said the m

esent Governor of Nueva Cordoba. Don Luiz d

ving told the truth, wondered forthwith if falsehood had better served his turn. Face and form of his interlocutor were turned from him, but he sa

new, I judge you to be of Nueva Cordoba.

ing directly from Cartagena, but that, being ill, I chose to recover myself at Pampatar before proceeding (as you now behold me, valorous se?or) to Hispaniola, and then

and Dominican, you play so large a part in this world's affairs, to your order at Segovia, which is an inland tow

arvels." Relieved by the easiness of his examination and the courtesy of his captor, he even smiled and ventured upon

you bear from your superior at Cartagen

Captain of the Sea Wraith whistled, and several of the mariners, who were now rolling the water-casks down the little bea

read the letter, which he had acutely guessed could not fail of being sent by so responsible a hand as the friar's from one dignitary of the order to another. Much stateliness of Latin greeting, commendation of the returning missionary, mention of a slight present of a golden dish wrought in alacrity and joy by Indian converts; lastly, and with some minuteness, the gossip, political and ecclesiastical, of the past twelfth month. The sinking of the Spanish ships and the sacking of the town of Nueva Cordoba by English pirates, t

e night ashore; they might leave for him the cockboat, and with the first light he would come aboard. The two prisoners,--place them in the ransacked bark a

nito--that tall, fierce, black-bearded Captain that your Pr

n him leaping up, he answered, boldly enough, "It became him well

an of courage! but go quickly, while as yet in all th

boat, but with a defiant cry end a rush across the sloping sand into the thick wood. The green depths which received him were so labyrinthine, so filled with secret places wherein to hide, that an hour's search might not dislodge him. The sometime Cap

no thunder, and only the sound of the low surf upon the shore. Robin, creeping from the wood, saw the Sea Wraith at anchor, and by the distant lightning the bark from Pampatar drifting far away without sail or rudder. Rounding the crescent of glea

ark, Luke,

ing the hilt of his drawn sword. But the sword point was lowered, his breast bared; he stood like one who awaits, who invites, the last thrust, in mortal surrender to an invisible foe. The lines of the figure ex

hat was like the inflection of a voice low and far away, the stars and the groups of stars, strange, strange after those of home, the lightning from the western heavens, the duellist awaiting with lowered point the coming o

ng the sound of the surf, hating the flash of the lightning; but at last, when a great part of the night had passed, he arose and went towards his master. The shad

ed. "'Tis only Robin,--n

t Baldry to return and claim his vengeance, and wrenched at the hand that seemed to

In the flashing of the lightning he loosed his rigid clasp, and the sword, clanking against the scabbard, fell upon the sand. The lightn

n the sand. "Sleep, boy; sleep," he said. "Now I know that the gu

said the boy. "Do you rest

well, lay thy head upon the sand and dream of a merry world, and

g towards him from a bath in the misty sea, was his master, dressed, and with his sword again in its sheath. As he made closer approach, the strengthening dawn showed the distinction of form and countenance. To the latter had returned the stillness and the worn be

the Sea Wraith. "And thou art as white as is th

re all dead--Captain Robert Baldry and Ralph Walter and all! And you meant no harm by them--O Jesu! you meant no harm! There's gold in the hold of the Sea Wraith for to buy back Ferne House, and now that you've won, and won again from the Spaniard, the Queen will not be

g of these parts, thou shalt be my jester," he said. "Come! for it's up sail and far away t

ng. Orange and green and red, the cockatoos flashed through the air, or perched upon great boughs beside parasitic blooms as gaudy as themselves. Giant palms rustled; monkeys slid down the swinging lianas, to climb again with haste, chattering wildly at human intrusion; butterflies fluttered aside; the spotted snake glided to its deeper haunts. Suddenly, in the distance, a wild beast roared, and when the thunder ceas

that bitter Fate into whose hands he had delivered, bound, both friend and foe; the man for whom, now that he knew what he knew, now that the fierce victrix had borne away her prey, was left but that remaining purpose, that darker thread which since yesterday's snapp

e gentle surf. Ferne rowed slowly, with a mind that was not for Robin, nor the glory of the tropic morning, nor the shock of yesterday, nor the

sity it was worn with a difference. For him now, as then, music played while he sat at table in the great cabin, alone, or with his rude lieutenants, in a silence seldom broken. Now, as he stepped upon deck, there was a flourish of trumpets, together wi

ang in the ears of the sick below, tossing, tossing, muttering and murmuring, though it pierced not the senses of them who lay still, who lay very, very still. The hymn ended, the