"Good-day to you! Good-day, Sir Bonnet," cried the pirate captain; "come on board, come on board, all of you, wife, daughter, father, if such they be! We'll let down ladders and I shall feast you finely."
"Nay, nay, good Captain Sorby," replied Bonnet, with courteous dignity, "my family and I have just stopped to pay you our respects. They have all heard of your great prowess, for I have told them. They may never have a chance again to look upon another of your fame."
"Heaven grant it!" said Dame Charter in her heart. "If I get out of this, I stay upon dry land forever."
"I grieve that my poor ship be not honoured by your ladies," said Sorby, "but I admit that her decks are scarcely fit for the reception of such company. It is but to-day that we have found time to cleanse her deck from the stain and disorder of our last fight, having lately come into harbour. That was a great fight, Sir Bonnet; we lay low and let the fellows board us, but not one of them went back again. Ha! ha! Not one of them went back again, good ladies."
Every pirate face on board that ill-conditioned sloop now glared over her rail, their eyes fixed upon the goodly company in the little boat, their horrid hair and beards stained and matted—it would have been hard to tell by what.
"Oh, father, father!" panted Kate, "please row away. What if they should now jump down upon us?"
"Good-day, good-day, my brave Captain Sorby," said Bonnet, "we must e'en row away; we have other craft to visit, but would first do honour to you and your bold crew."
Captain Sorby lifted high his great bespattered hat, and every grinning demon of the crew waved hat or rag or pail or cutlass and set up a discordant yell in honour of their departing visitors.
"Oh! go not to another, father," pleaded Kate, her pale face in tears; "visit no more of them, I pray you!"
"Ay, truly, keep away from them," said Mr. Delaplaine. "I am no coward, but I vow to you that I shall die of fright if I come close to another of those floating hells."