"I thought it must be your face," said the lad boldly.

He was about to speak again, had not Tomb silenced him with a gesture. He liked the lad.

Had he spoken again, Tomb would have silenced him for ever.

He was about to say that any other man with a face like that would have died long ago, from wounded vanity.

From a very rare old print.

"Would you care to be a Pirate, my youthful fellow?" said Tomb.

The lad hesitated. "My father . . ." he began.

"Dead," said Tomb, in a hollow voice.

"My mother . . ."

"Dead," Tomb replied, in a monotonous whisper.

"My brother and sister . . ."

Tomb raised a sorrowful hand: his heart was touched.

"My family . . ." said the young man in despair.

"My poor boy," said Tomb, with tears in his eyes, "my poor, dear fellow, I killed them all not an hour ago."

"Then my sweetheart would object to my becoming a Pirate," said the lad, weeping.

"Enough," said Tomb; "you are called from henceforth Dingy David. Now to sea!"

For ten years they plundered upon the Spanish Main, until they acquired so much money that Bilge Island, Tomb's business address, smelt of hoarded gold, and the beach glittered with jewels.

Then both Tomb and David—I am keeping the secret of his real name to the end—became tired of so much adventure.

They had sailed in many seas: the Spanish Main—commonly known as the Dining-room Carpetwaters—the Kitchen Archipelago, the Drawing-room Inland Sea, the Creek of Conservatory, and the Lake of Passages. They had roamed the Wilderness of the High Street, the terrors of the Gardens they knew, and the Gulf of Front Hall was common water.

So they retired for a breathing space and a wash to that Island where the neat cottage stood and the geraniums grew.

They moored the Inky Murk to a low-growing pom-pom tree, and then,