Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/216

202 "Otherwise, you would give all you possessed if I would shoot you now as you sit; but don't let us look at it that way. You must see that your case is utterly hopeless; you will never look again on any civilised city, or see the face of a man you have known. For all purposes you are as dead as though twenty feet of earth covered you. If you would still have life, not altogether under unfavourable conditions, you have but to ask for pen, ink, and paper—and to make yourself one of us."

"That I will never do!"

"Oh, you say that now; but we shall give you some days to think of it. Let me advise you to be a man of common sense, and not to run your head against a stone wall. Believe me, we are a curious company; I don't suppose there is a man aboard us who has not some deaths to his account. I am wanted for a murder in Shropshire; but I am giving your people a little trouble. Ha! ha!"

This was said with such a fearful laugh that I shrank back from the man, who restrained himself with an effort as he rose to go; but as he stood at the door, he said—

"We are now bound on a four-days' voyage. During these four days, you need fear nothing. We should have paid off our score in the Atlantic, and sent you and your fellows to join other intrusive friends of ours, if we had not