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"Ha, ship earlier than I expected Suffer me to make an end o' this business--sit ye, comrade, sit! As for you, Bo'sun, have up a flask o' the Spanish wine--the black seal!"

"Aye, cap'n!" says he, and seizing a fistful of hair above his eyebrow, strode away, closing the door behind hi--the lean, aquiline face of him so smooth and youthful in contrast to his silver hair--I was struck by his changed look; indeed he seemed soht hi rapier that dangled at his chair-back; moreover there was about him also an air of latent power I had not noticed ere this

At length, having ot up and stretched himself: "So, shipmate, art ready to swear the blood-fellowship wi' lanced at me swiftly fro his chin "The wind's changed it seeer--and wherefore?"

"'Tis nohis head, "an we sail as brothers and comrades there must be never a secret betwixt us--speak!"

"As ye will!" quoth I, leaning back inas master in a ship bound for the Main in quest of Sir Richard Brandon lost off Hispaniola two years agone Sir Richard Brandon is the ht ever since I broke out of the hell he soldtohis ar this et my hand on this s, and this I swear!"

While I spake thus,his ar me beneath his black brohen I had ended he turned and falls a-pacing to and fro across the room as it had been the narrow poop of a ship

"Ah--I know you now,suddenly beforein your sleep outside the Conisby Ar, and as one born and bred here in Kent I e like a Conisby,' and by God, eance!" says he, his thin features grown sharp and austere, "Ah! I have seenthe wild islands of the Caribbees I have seen the devilish cruelties of Spaniard, Portugal, and the red horrors of Indian vengeance--but, for cold,its ti on poisonous hate, it needeth your entleman o' quality!" Here he turned his back and paced slowly to the end of the rooone, in its stead was the grimly whimsical expression of the mariner, as I had seen him first