“’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.”