“Won’t you heave to, and put off a small boat for a parley?” I inquired.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH I HOLD A PARLEY
THE two pirates turned to each other for consultation, irresolute, but evidently impressed by the fact that their prize did not purpose to hoist sail and make a run for it.
“What ho! mates?” demanded the captain, in as gruff a voice as he could compass: “Ye’ve heard his speech, and he has struck his flag.”
“Suppose the villain plays us false,” rejoined the “mates” or rather, the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I rarely had smiled at all.
The captain turned to one side, so that now I could see both him and his crew. The leader was as fine a specimen of boy as you could have asked, sturdy of bare legs, brown of face, red of hair, ragged and tumbled of garb. His crew was active though slightly less robust, a fair-haired, light-skinned chap, blue-eyed, and somewhat better clad than his companion. There was something winning about his face. At a glance I knew his soul. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, in the bud. My heart leaped out to him instinctively in a great impulse of sympathy and understanding. Indeed, suddenly, I felt the blood tingle through my hair. I looked upon life as I had not these three years. The imagination of Youth, the glamour of Adventure, lay here before me; things I cruelly had missed these last few years, it seemed to me.
“How, now, shipmates?” I remarked mildly. “Wouldst doubt the faith of one who himself hath flown the Jolly Rover? Cease your fears and come aboard—that is to say, come ashore.”