Page:Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921).djvu/59

Rh and sailed out of the harbor of Corunna, and through the midst of the allied fleet riding at anchor in the darkness.

By and by, when the morning came, the captain was awakened by the pitching and tossing of the vessel, the rattle and clatter of the tackle overhead, and the noise of footsteps passing and repassing hither and thither across the deck. Perhaps he lay for a while turning the matter over and over in his muddled head, but he presently rang the bell, and Avary and another fellow answered the call.

“What’s the matter?” bawls the captain from his berth.

“Nothing,” says Avary, coolly.

“Something’s the matter with the ship,” says the captain. “Does she drive? What weather is it?”

“Oh no,” says Avary; “we are at sea.”

“At sea?”

“Come, come!” says Avary: “I’ll tell you; you must know that I’m the captain of the ship now, and you must be packing from this here cabin. We are bound to Madagascar, to make all of our fortunes, and if you’re a mind to ship for the cruise, why, we’ll be glad to have you, if you will be sober and mind your own business; if not, there is a boat alongside, and I’ll have you set ashore.”

The poor half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under the command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he bundled, and away he rowed with four or five of the crew, who, like him, refused to join with their jolly shipmates.

The rest of them sailed away to the East Indies, to try their fortunes in those waters, for our Captain Avary was of a high spirit, and had no mind to fritter away his time in the West Indies squeezed dry by buccaneer Morgan and others of lesser note. No, he would make a bold stroke for it at once, and make or lose at a single cast.

On his way he picked up a couple of like kind with himself— Rh