Page:Explorers of the Dawn (February 1922).djvu/36

Rh "Oh, did you," I burst out, "ever see a pirate ship, an' pirates—real ones?"

His face lit up.

"Surely," he replied casually, "many an one."

"P'raps—" ventured Angel, with an excited laugh, "p'raps you're one yourself!"

The old gentleman searched our eager faces with his wide-open, sea blue eyes, then he looked cautiously into the room behind him, and, apparently satisfied that no one could overhear, he put his hand to the side of his mouth, and said in a loud hoarse whisper—

"That I am. Pirate as ever was!"

I think you could have knocked me down with a feather. I know my knees shook and the room reeled. The Seraph was the first to recover, piping cheerfully—

"I yike piwates!"

"Yes," repeated the old gentleman, reflectively, "pirate as ever was. The things I've seen and done would fill the biggest book you ever saw, and it'd make your hair stand on end to read it—what with fights, and murders, and hangings, and storms, and shipwreck, and the hunt for gold! Many a sweet schooner or frigate I've sunk, or taken for myself; and there isn't a port on the South Seas where women don't hush their children crying with the fear of Captain Pegg."