only will I see ye safe for what ye already have done, but will keep ye safe against any enemy we may meet, be he whom he may!”

“’Tis well,” said L’Olonnois. “Say on!”

“And in return I ask a boon.”

“Name it, fellow!”

“Already I have named it—that I, too, shall be accepted as one of the brotherhood. Oh, listen”—I broke out impulsively—“I have never been a pirate, and I have never been a boy. I have had everything in the world I wanted and it made me awfully lonesome, because when you have everything you have nothing. I have nothing to do but eat and sleep, and hunt and fish, and read and write, and study and think, and play my music, here. I do not want to do these things any more. Especially I do not want to think. Boys do not think, and I want to be a boy. I want to be a pirate with you. I want to seek my fortune with you.”

We sat silent, almost solemn for a moment, so sincere was my speech and so startling to them. But thanks to L’Olonnois and his saving book, illusion came to us once more in time.

“Will ye be good brother and true pirate?” demanded L’Olonnois. “And will ye take the oath of blood?”

“That I will!” said I.

“Brothers and good shipmates all”—broke in Jean Lafitte in a deep voice—“what say ye? Shall we put him to the oath?”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” responded the deep chorus of scores of full-chested voices. Or, at least, so it seemed to us, though, mayhap, ’twas no more than Jimmy who spoke.

“Swear him, then!” commanded Jean Lafitte. “Swear him by the oath of blood.”

“We—we haven’t any blood!” whispered L’Olonnois, aside, somewhat troubled.

“That have we, mates,” said I, “and the ceremony shall have full solemnity.”

I took up my keen hunting knife and deliberately and slowly opened the side of my thumb, more to the pain of Jimmy, I fancy, than to myself, as I could see by the twitch of his features.

“By this blood I swear!” said I: “and on the point of my blade I swear to be a true pirate; to fight the fight of all; to divulge no plans of the company; and to share with my brothers share and share alike of all booty we may take.”

“’Tis well!” said L’Olonnois, much impressed and delighted, as also was his mate, very evidently.

“And now, my brothers,” said I, “you, also, must swear to divulge no secret of mine that you may learn, to tell nothing of my plans, or my name, or the name of the port where I signed on the rolls.”

“We don’t know your name,” said Jimmy, “but neither of us will give you away.”

Jean Lafitte was all for opening up his own thumb for blood, but I stopped him. “This will do,” said I, and stained his fingers and those of L’Olonnois—who grew pale at sight of it to his evident disgust.

So, thus, I became a pirate, and we three were brother rovers of the deep. I fancied my associates would be loyal. I was thinking of a certain cousin of the younger pirate. Not for worlds would I seek to pursue her now; but there had arisen in my soul, already, a sort of strange wonder whether some intent of fate had sent this youngster here to remind me once more of her, whom I would forget.

“Now,” said I at last, “let us seek what fare the castle offers for the night.” I could see they were tired and sleepy, and so found for them bath and clean pajamas—somewhat too large to be sure—and good beds in the wing of my log house. And never, as I be a true pirate, never have I seen so many and so various single-fire and revolving short arms, in my life, as these two buccaneers disclosed when they unbelted and laid aside their jackets! Even thus equipped, I found them looking enviously at my walls, where hung weapons of many lands. I sent them to bed happier by telling them that, in the morning, they should select such as they chose for the equipment of our vessel. “Gee!” said Jean Lafitte again. “Gee! Gee!” He was so happy that I, too, was happy. It was L’Olonnois who changed that.

“Methinks,” said he, regarding me sternly, “that in yonder ivy-clad halls might dwell some lady fair! Tell me, is it not so?”

He stretched a thin arm out, in the sleeve of my smallest pajamas, and pointed a slender finger at the interior of my castle of dreams. Alas, after all it was empty! My old melancholy came back to me.

“No, my brothers,” said I, “no maid has ever passed yon door. No, nor ever will.”

L’Olonnois bent his flaxen head in dignified and manly sympathy. “I see,” said he, “our brother in his youth has, perhaps, been deceived by some fair one!”

Upon which I left them for my own room.

If two buccaneers in my castle slept well that night, a third did not. Anopheles might go hang. I did not fancy my new microscope. I doubted if my last violin were a real Strad. I did not like the last music my dealers had sent out to me. My studies of Confucius and Buddha might go hang, and my new book as well. For now, before me, came the face of a certain pirate’s aunt, and she was indeed a lady fair. And I knew full well—as I had known all these years, although I had tried to deceive myself into believing otherwise—that gladly as I had exchanged the city for the wilderness, with equal gladness would I exchange my leisure, all my wealth, all my belongings, for a moment’s touch of her hand, a half-hour of talk heart-to-heart with her, so that, indeed, I might know the truth; so that, at least, I might have it direct from her, bitter though the truth might be.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR THE SPANISH MAIN

WHEN, in the morning, I passed from my quarters toward the main room which served me both as living-room and dining hall, I found that my pirate guests were also early risers. I could hear them arguing over some matter, which proved to be no more serious than the question of a cold bath of mornings, Jimmy maintaining that everybody had a cold bath every morning, whereas John insisted with equal heat that nobody ever bathed (“washed,” I think he called it), oftener than once a week, to wit, on Saturdays only. They engaged in a pillow fight to settle it, and as Jimmy had John fairly well smothered by his rapid fire, I voted that the ayes appeared to have it when they referred the point to me.

As we are very remote and never visited in my wilderness home, it is not infrequent that I take my morning meal very much indeed in mufti, although Hiroshimi is always most exact himself. On this morning it occurred to us all that pajamas made a garb more piratical and more nautical than anything else obtainable, so we took breakfast—and I think Hiroshimi never served me a breakfast more delicate and tempting—clad as perhaps the Romans were, if they had pajamas in those times. All went well until the keen eyes of Jimmy, wandering about my place, noted a certain photograph which rested on the top of my piano—where I was much comforted always to have it, especially of an evening, when sometimes I played Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, or other music of the like. It was the picture of the woman who did not know and very likely did not care where, or how, I lived—Helena Emory, to my mind one of the most beautiful women of her day; and I have seen the world’s portraits of the world’s beauties of all recorded days in beauty. Toward this Jimmy ran excitedly—I, with equal speed, endeavoring to divert him from his purpose.

“But it’s