"Keep the flag," mumbled the buccaneer; "show it to de Graaf. If ever you steal this ship I'll join your crew," and he disappeared over the rail.
When the Badine finally put out into the Gulf Anthony went to de Iberville's cabin to report. There he confronted himself in the mirror of its fine furnishings. His rough hair was braided into a queue and tied back with a bandana. His naked chest and arms were dirty, his clothes were in rags bound round with a sash. His stockings had been ripped away. His feet were bare. He looked at the uncouth figure that he presented. Where had he seen such another? His smile was gone. His voice was dull with misery.
"Tell me," he demanded, "what I am. Am I a patriot or am I a pirate?" With a pair of dreadful blood-stained hands he unfurled the black flag of such shocking design.
The Sieur de Iberville was also much disheveled, but he answered with the dignity of a victor. "The courts of all civilized nations are now busy with the problem: 'When is it right for men to fight on the high seas?' and until that is decided, if it ever can be, you and I must obey our superior officers." He laid a soothing hand on Anthony's wounded shoulder. "We have been in very bad company this morning, du Gay. Lest we get into worse, let me advise you to tie a piece of lead in that captured rag and drop it overboard. Many a man no worse than you and I has been hanged because he carried the Jolly Roger!"
VIII
BROKEN POTS
Swashbucklers of Spain Duel for the Food of Pierre Le Moyne de Iberville—Hunger Seasons Sagimity
ANTHONY knelt before a jar which held perhaps two gallons. It was of red hand-made pottery open at the top and it had a bail of withes. Low on one side was a hole leading into the vessel between its flat bottom and another ventilated over-bottom to create a draught. The jar was filled with fat pine shavings and dry cones. He struck his flint and after several trials lighted some dry grass which fired the resin in the pine. Then the tiny clay stove began to roar cheerfully. Setting another crock upon it and mixing in that a very little corn with too much water the Picard du Gay tried to tell himself that he was getting breakfast.
Provisions had run short at this fort of Biloxi, and Anthony, one of the twenty men left here to guard the Great River's mouth, had missed more meals than he liked to count. The stockade on the Mississippi itself was no better furnished with men or food than this one. The main body of the colony had been moved several times in hope of better picking and was now at a third fort on Mobile Bay. Like all new settlements from the beginning of time until to-morrow, this one had not been able to fit itself to the country about it without making mistakes. One error after another in handling foodstuffs had brought about the catastrophe of famine.