say it, some spell, whether of this presence of Youth, whether of the evening and the sun, or whether of the inner and struggling soul of Man, so fell upon us all then and there, that we were not man and boys, but bold adventurers, all three of like kidney! This was not a modern land that lay about us. Yonder was not the copse beyond the birches, where my woodcock sometimes found cover. This was not my trout-stream. Those yonder were not my elms and larches moving in the evening air. No, before us lay the picture of the rolling deep, its long green swells breaking high in white spindrift. The keen wind of other days sounded in our ears, and yonder pressed the galleons of Spain! Youth, Youth and Adventure, were ours.

We smiled not at all, therefore, as, with some thoughtful effort, it is true, we held to fitting manner of speech. “We seek for treasure,” piped the thin voice of him I had heard called Jimmy. “Let none dare lift hand against us!”

“And whither away, my hearties?”

“Spang! to the Spanish Main.” This also from the blue-eyed boy; who, now, with some difficulty, managed to let down the hammer of his six-shooter without damage to himself or others.

“We didn’t know but youse would try to stop us,” exclaimed the red-haired leader. “We come around the bend and seen you settin’ there; an’ we was resolved—to—to——”

“To sell our lives dearly!” supplemented Jimmy. “He who would seek to stop us does so at his peril.” And Jimmy made so fell a movement toward his side-arms that I hastened to restrain him.

“Yes,” said I; “you are quite right, my hearties.”

“But, gee!” ventured the red-haired pirate, “what was you thinkin’ about?”

“You ask me to tell truth, good Sire,” I made reply, “and I shall do no less. At the very moment you trained your bow-chaser on me, I was thinking of two things.”

“Speak on, caitiff!” demanded Jimmy fiercely.

“Nay, call me not so, good Sir,” I rejoined, “for such, in good-sooth, I am not, but honest faithful man. Ye have but now asked what I pondered, and I fain would speak truth, an’ it please ye, my hearties.”

“What’s he givin’ us, Jimmy?” whispered the pirate captain dubiously, aside.

“Speak on!” again commanded he of the blue eyes. “But your life blood dyes the deck if you seek to deceive Jean Lafitte, or Henry L’Olonnois!”

(So then, thought I, at last I knew their names.)

In reply I reached to my belt and drew out quickly—so quickly that they both flinched away—the long handled knife which, usually, I carried with me for cutting down alders or other growth which sometimes entangled my flies as I fished along the stream. “Listen,” said I, “I swear the pirates’ oath. On the point of my blade,” and I touched it with my right forefinger, “I swear that I pondered on two things when you surprised me.”

“Name them!” demanded Jimmy L’Olonnois fiercely.

“First, then,” I answered, “I was wondering what I could use as a cork to my phial, when once I had yonder Anopheles in it——”

“Who’s he?” demanded Jean Lafitte.

“Anopheles? A friend of mine,” I replied; “a mosquito, in short.”

“Jimmy, he’s crazy!” ejaculated Jean Lafitte uneasily.

“Say on, caitiff!” commanded L’Olonnois, ignoring him; “what else?”

“In the second place,” said I—and again I placed my right forefinger on the point of my blade, “I was thinking of Helena.”

“Is she your little girl,” hesitatingly inquired Jimmy L’Olonnois, for the instant forgetting his part.

“No,” said I sadly, “she is not my little girl.”

“Where is she?” vaguely.

“Regarding the whereabouts of either Anopheles or Helena, at this moment,” said I still sadly, “I am indeed all at sea, as any good pirate should be.”

I tried to jest, but fared ill at it. I felt my face flush at hearing her name spoken aloud. And sadly true was it that, on that afternoon and many another, I had found myself, time and again, adream with Helena’s face before me. I saw it now—a face I had not seen these three years, since the time when first I had come hither with the purpose of forgetting.

Jimmy was back in his part again, and doing nobly. “Ha!” said he. “So, fellow, pondering on a fair one, didst not hear the approach of our good ship, the Sea Rover?”

“In good sooth, I did not,” I answered; “and as for these other matters, I swear on my blade’s point I have spoken the truth.”

Our conversation languished for the moment. Illusion lay in the balance. The old melancholy impended above me ominously.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH I AM A CAPTIVE

“WHAT ho! Jean Lafitte,” said I at length, rousing myself from the old habit of reverie, of which I had chiefest dread; “and you, Henri L’Olonnois, scourges of the main, both of you, listen! I have a plan to put before you, my hearties.”

“Say on, Sirrah!” rejoined the younger pirate, so promptly and so gravely that again I had much to do to refrain from sudden mirth.

“Why then, look ye,” I continued. “The sun is sinking beneath the wave, and the good ship rides steady at her anchor. Meantime men must eat! and yonder castle amid the forest offers booty. What say ye if we pass within the wood, and see what we may find of worth to souls bold as ours?”

“’Tis well!” answered L’Olonnois; and I could see assent in Lafitte’s eyes. In truth I could discover no great preparations for a long voyage in the open hold of the Sea Rover, and doubted not that both captain and crew by this time were hungry. Odd crumbs of crackers and an empty sardine can might be all very well at the edge of the village of Pausaukee (I judged they could have come no greater distance, some twelve or fifteen miles); but they do not serve for so long a journey as lies between Pausaukee and the Spanish Main.

They rose as I did, and we passed beyond the clump of tall birches, along the edge of my mowing meadow, and through the gate which closes my woodland path—to me the loveliest of all wood-trails, so gentle and so silent is it always, and so fringed, seasonably, with ferns and flowers. Thus, presently, we saw the blue smoke rising above my lodge, betokening to me that my Japanese factotum, Hiroshimi, now had my dinner under way.

To me, it was my customary abode, my home these three years; but they beside me saw not the rambling expanse of my leisurely log mansion. They noted not the overhanging gables, the lattices of native wood. To them, yonder lay a castle in a foreign land. Here was moat and wall, then a portcullis, and gratings warded these narrow portals against fire of musketoon. My pet swallows’ nest, demure above my door, to them offered the aspect of a culverin’s mouth; and, as now, I made my customary approach-call, by which I heralded my return from any excursion on the stream of an evening, I could swear these invaders looked for naught less than a swarm of archers springing to the walls, and the hoarse answer of my men-at-arms back of each guarded portal. Such is the power of youthful dreaming, such the residuary heritage of days of high emprise, when life was full of blood and wine and love, and savored not so wholly of dull commonplace!

But indeed, (or so I presume; for at the moment my own imagination swept on with theirs) none manned the walls or rattled the chains of gate and bridge. The saffron Hiroshimi opened the