“I looked around. The pirate was come to port. On one side of her lay our ship, on the other, land.
“This land was really an island, though we lay too close to perceive it. We beheld very high cliffs towering to a prodigious height above us, streaked with shining green, creeping plants, and wreathed with vines. As I looked on them, a sort of horror seized on me, a phantom foreboding....”
He paused, and lay back in his bed with closed eyes; but soon continued, saying:
“Now the pinnace of the pirate lay alongside, and the residue of our party was bidden to get into her. Nay, we were driven into the boat! For they did press upon us, punching and thrusting us in the back. As villainous a crew as ever man set eyes on! Hideous visages, blackened with sin, scarred, mutilated with old wounds. And they were dressed and tricked out, these pirates, as from the wardrobe of the world; as though it had been opened unto them, and they had taken, every man, whatsoever he listed. For one had a pair of taffety breeches, a lady’s cape, and the turban of an Arab; another the staid habit of a dignitary of Holy Church cloaked about with the robes of a Chinaman; a leering negro strutted in the finery of a courtier of the king.
“Well, a number of ’em came down into the boat with us, and a big man took command. He is your Quartermaster!”
“Ouvery!” exclaimed I. “Was he the captain of the pirate?”
“No,” said he, “he was the quartermaster, having the second place on the ship. Well, Ouvery—or ‘Blazing Sue,’ as they called him—having seated himself in the stern, ordered us to take the oars and pull to the shore. On one of us pleading weakness, he burst forth into foul oaths, adding:
“‘You shall row, though you split!’
“Then, rising in a frenzy, he snatched up a musket by the barrel, felled the poor man, and, seizing hold on the collar of his coat, slung him over into the sea; and a huge shark immediately swam up and griped him.
“For a space Ouvery sat growling and snapping with his teeth like a dog, whilst the other pirates jested among themselves; then he gave the order, ‘Pull away.’