title="[Pg 17]"/> already visible, and a cannon ball, whistling close by the brigantine's rigging, was the first message from the sea-robber.

Captain Rolls had no cannon with which to answer. The silence was interpreted by the pirates as fear, and one of their number shouted in a tone of thunder through his speaking trumpet:

"Ship ahoy! A word with the captain."

Instantly a battle-flag fluttered from every mast-head on the brigantine.

A terrible uproar arose on the pirate ship; a tall man, with a gray vest, girdled by a scarlet sash, appeared on deck, issuing orders in loud, hoarse tones, upon which half the sails were furled, and with a swift turn the light craft came round before the wind close by the brigantine, without firing a shot, evidently considering her a sure prey, which must be spared from harm.

On the pirate's prow was carved a strange human figure, the symbol of the ship's name, The Sea Devil, and, which, the pirates humorously asserted, was the living image of their Captain Davis, whose face had been so disfigured by the bursting of a shell that it resembled a death's head.

The pirates dashed with Satanic recklessness toward the brigantine, whose defenders still awaited them in motionless silence. But just at the moment the grappling irons were thrown, Rolls made a sign, and the thunder of the report of the sailors' arms followed; when the smoke dispersed, the two vessels were already fast locked together, the fire had killed several of the pirates; the others, pushing their comrades' bodies aside, were trying to climb to the brigantine's deck. In an instant the two crews were fighting man to man with sabres and knives. One furiously attacked, the other coolly defended; neither feared wounds or weapons.

The sailors fought bravely. Captain Rolls remained in his place, with his eyes fixed on the pirate leader, who had already fired at him three times without making his foe even turn his head.

"I'll see whether you are the devil or I!" Davis at last shouted savagely. "Follow me, you scoundrels," and seizing his sabre between his teeth, while swinging a huge hammer above his head with his right hand, he sprang on the deck of the brigantine, felling two of her crew at the same instant. The pirates, with deafening yells, rushed into the breach thus made, and the terrified sailors began to yield, more alarmed by the hideous face of the pirate leader than by the weight of his blows.

Rolls quietly drew a pistol from his belt. "You won't hit me!" yelled Davis, gnashing his teeth and trying to startle the captain by rolling his eye-balls hideously. The latter fired, and whoever was looking at Davis at the moment saw a bloody star on his forehead where the bullet entered. The pirate suddenly grasped the handle of his hammer with both hands and sank lifeless.

Bewildered by the loss of their leader, the corsairs were on the point of yielding their vantage ground, when one of their number shouted triumphantly: "Hurrah, Barthelemy!" and at that moment a fierce yell arose from the center of the brigantine. While the fight had been raging on one side, six pirates in a boat had rowed around her and crept noiselessly to her deck, which they reached just as their captain fell. These men, too, turned to fly, but one of their number, a young, slender fellow, with a bronzed face, thick curling locks, and sparkling eyes, sprang behind Rolls, and, pinioning his arms, wrested his pistol from his hold and forced him to his knees.

"Let no one stir or you are all dead men!" shouted the young pirate in bold, ringing tones, and the sailors, disheartened by the capture of their commander, laid down their arms before the savage forms thronging on deck.

The victory was Barthelemy's; and his comrades' first act was to lift him on their shoulders, declare him their captain and, with terrible oaths, swear eternal fealty by death, hell, and the devil.

A Herculean fellow raised him aloft like a child, and, pointing to the figures lying weltering in their blood, shouted in a voice of thunder:

"Who deserves to be your leader better than Robert Barthelemy?"

"No one! No one!" was the unanimous answer.

"Will you have him for your leader, captain, king?"

"Hurrah!" responded the crew.

"Stop!" cried Barthelemy from the Hercules' shoulder. "I heard some one shout 'No.'"

"Who was it?" roared the athlete; "does any one want to jest with death?"

"Don't rage, Skyrme, don't rage, my brave giant. Speech is free. Come forward, Lord Simpson, you oppose my election. Step forward, my valiant nobleman, and tell us your objection to me!"

The pirates, amid rude laughter, pushed before Barthelemy a tall, fair man, who, with his hands thrust into his pockets, eyed the new captain scornfully from head to foot.

"Speak fair, noble lord!" said Skyrme, raising his sinewy hand, threateningly above Simpson's head, "or you'll bite your own tongue."

"I should do that without your telling me," replied Simpson, nonchalantly, glancing at his comrades. "You know that my father was Lord Simpson?"

"Of course we do!" shouted the others.

"My father was the sworn foe of Jeffreys, who, after Monmouth's fall, brought the brave English Protestant nobles to the scaffold. My father suffered with them. Since that time I have hated the Papists, and do not want one even for a pirate chief. Not even you, Barthelemy, for you are a Papist."

Instead of breaking the speaker's head, Skyrme raised him on his arm and, amid the loud laughter of the pirates, drew him toward Barthelemy, with whom he drained the cup of friendship, after Barthelemy had assured him, on his honor as a pirate, that he had not entered a church since his christening, and had never been in a priest's presence during his entire life. The new captain was then formally given the leader's cap with its scarlet plume, and the whole band then proceeded to the work of distributing the booty.

Barthelemy sat on a cask turned upside down, holding on his knees a black book in which were written in red letters the names of the pirates, and read them one by one in a loud tone. Often nobody answered and, at the end of a long pause, some one growled: "Dead," and the name was instantly erased from the list.

Just then a pirate brought Captain Rolls, who had been bound hand and foot, to the mainmast, where he laid him flat on the deck. Barthelemy raised his hat with the utmost courtesy.

"Pardon me, captain, that my men have placed you in so uncomfortable a position. You are a brave soldier and fought well. Unbind this worthy man."

"His hands too?" asked a pirate, casting a doubtful glance at his leader from under his shaggy brows.

"Yes, Asphlant, especially if the captain will promise to do nothing against us."

"I'll promise nothing," replied Rolls.

"Well, no matter; I told you to unbind his hands at any rate, it will be our business to see that he doesn't break anybody's head. And now, captain, be kind enough to declare the contents of your vessel, which you have so bravely defended. No doubt you have a valuable cargo."

"You have captured the ship, and can search every corner of her, I shall guide you nowhere."

"Right again. Men, go below."

The pirates instantly leaped down the hatchways and, after spending an hour in rummaging through every part of the ship, they returned to Barthelemy with the sorrowful tidings that there was nothing in the whole vessel except a cask of biscuit and one of water.

Rolls could not help smiling at