"Abner Marchand, I am sorry that your vessel should be the first one to fall into my power, but that has happened, and there is no help for it. My men are below ransacking your hold for the goods and treasure it may contain. When your cargo, or what we want of it, is safe upon my ship, I shall burn your vessel, and you and your men must walk the plank."
At this dreadful statement, Ben Greenway staggered backward in speechless dismay.
"Yes," cried Bonnet, "that shall I do, for there is naught else I can do. And then you shall see, you doubting Greenway, whether I am a pirate or no."
To all this Captain Marchand said not a word. But at this moment a woman's scream was heard from below, and then there was another scream from another woman. Captain Marchand started.
"Your men have wandered into my cabin," he exclaimed, "and they have frightened my passengers. Shall I go and bring them up, Major Bonnet? They will be better here."
"Ay, ay!" cried the pirate captain, surprised that there should be female passengers on board, and Marchand, followed by Ben Greenway, disappeared below.
"Confound women passengers," said Bonnet to himself; "that is truly a bit of bad luck."
In a few minutes Marchand was back, bringing with him a middle-aged and somewhat pudgy woman, very pale; a younger woman of exceeding plainness, and sobbing steadfastly; and also an elderly man, evidently an invalid, and wearing a long dressing-gown.
"These," said Captain Marchand, "are Master and Madam Ballinger and daughter, of York in England, who have been sojourning in Jamaica for the health of the gentleman, but are now sailing with me to Barbadoes, hoping the air of our good island may be more salubrious for the lungs."
Captain Bonnet had never been in the habit of speaking loudly before ladies, but he now felt that he must stand by his character.