“Don’t call me ‘Jimmy’!” rejoined that hopeful. “My name is L’Olonnois, the Scourge of The Sea. Me an’ Jean Lafitte, we follow Black Bart the Avenger, to the Spanish Main. Auntie, pass me the bacon, please. I’m just about starved.”
Mrs. Daniver, as was her custom, ate a very substantial breakfast; Helena, almost none at all; nor had I much taste for food. In some way, our constraint insensibly extended to all the party, much to L’Olonnois’ disgust. “It’s her fault!” I overheard him say to his mate. “Women can’t play no games. An’ we was havin’ such a bully chance! Now, like’s not, we won’t stay here longer’n it’ll take to get things back to the boat again. I don’t want to go back home—I’d rather be a pirate; an’ so’d any fellow.”
“Sure he would,” assented Jean. They did not see me, behind the tent.
“Somethin’s wrong,” began L’Olonnois, portentously.
“What’d you guess?” queried Lafitte. “Looks to me like it was somethin’ between him an’ the fair captive.”
“That’s just it—that’s just what I said! Now, if Black Bart lets his whiskers grow, an’ Auntie Helena wears them rings, ain’t it just like in the book? Course it is! But here they go, don’t eat nothin’, don’t talk none to nobody.”
“I’ll tell you what!” began Lafitte.
“Uh-huh, what?” demanded L’Olonnois.
“A great wrong has been did our brave leader by yon heartless jade; that’s what!”
“You betcher life they has. He’s on the square, an’ look what he done for us—look how he managed things all the way down to here. Anybody else couldn’t have got away with this. Anybody else’d never a’ went out there last night after John, just a Chink, thataway. An’ her!”