“The fortunes of murder, robbery, arson, piracy! There was no fight!”
“The will of Providence, then.”
“The will of the devil! You shan’t lay their murders, and robberies, and arsons, and piracies upon Providence! That would be blasphemy! There was no struggle! What could our unarmed little Baltimore clipper do—though every one was a hero—against a pirate ship of twenty-four guns, manned by the desperate offscourings of the galleys and the convict prisons, all armed to the teeth, bristling with pistols, daggers and cutlasses? Nothing at all! They boarded us, walked into us and through us, and made prisoners of our men, took possession of our ship, then put the men into two open boats and sent them adrift, to sink or swim, carried off me and young Roland captives to their own deck, and finally sent off an officer and a detail of their devilish pirates to work the Kitty—and Satan only knows where they carried her and her valuable cargo of rum and tobacco! We parted company then and there. I never saw young Roland after that. I believe he did make some resistance, and was wounded. I saw him bleeding and carried below, and I never saw him again.”
Here the captain made an involuntary dash at the earl’s cap, but his hand was intercepted by Mr. Force.
“He’ll scalp us next,” said Wynnette.
“Umph! Umph! Umph!” grunted the captain.
“Oh, Uncle Gideon! Oh, Uncle Gideon!” moaned Rosemary, while Mrs. Force gripped her own hands firmly in silent trouble.
“Don’t cry, honey! I believe he is safe enough and will turn up all right. I called them murderers! And, no doubt at all, some of that criminal crew were murderers, and worse than murderers, if such could be! But they did no murder in my sight! They might—had they chosen—they might have massacred all hands aboard the Kitty, but they didn’t! They put the men in open boats and set them afloat to take their chance; and then—for some reason well known to himself, but quite unknown to me—Capt. Silver took young Bayard and myself on board the Argente. I said I never saw Roland after he was taken down below, nor did I! But I did not fail to inquire for him. The head devil told me that the young man was all right; that his wound was only skin deep; that his men never killed or wounded men whom they could so easily overpower and capture without bloodshed; and especially in the case of a fine young seaman who might become useful to them.”
“Oh, Uncle Gideon! Then they did only take Roland on board to make a pirate of him!”
“Of course they did, my dear; for when I asked to see Roland, Silver told me, with a satanic laugh, that the young man was ‘in retreat,’ preparatory to entering his novitiate in the holy orders of bold buccaneers, roaring sea rovers, and that no outsiders should have access to him, for fear they might shake his good resolutions and even win him back to the selfish world.”