“‘He made me sit down, and offered me some; but I was sick at heart, and could touch nothing.
“‘When I told him what the officer had done, he merely laughed.
“‘“Too tender-hearted, Bassanto,” he said, with a hiccup or two. “Soon get over all that. Discipline, you know, discipline mus’ be maintained—any cost. ’F a man insults you, shoot ’m down. ’Xpect you to do the same.”
“‘I did not like to wound Morgan’s feelings, nor to quarrel with him, so I sat talking for some little time on different subjects, then quietly retired. Yet to my sorrow I could see that his character was entirely changed, the result of rum-drinking and bad company, and that the once gentle and religious boy had been transformed into a bloodthirsty and cruel desperado.
“‘Our ship’s head was turned westward from Jamaica, which might have been called our headquarters.
“‘We passed betwixt the most south-westerly point of Cuba, Yucatan, and our cruising-ground was the shores of Campeachy, in the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. The weather was fiercely hot, and a wild band our cut-throat crew did look; for they kept watch naked to the waist or nearly so, with bare feet and cotton pugarees bound round their heads. Their faces and chests were burned as brown as the back of a fiddle.
“‘One day when the captain was ill, I succeeded in getting him to give up rum to a great extent, and he also put strict limits to that served out to the men.
“‘There was much growling and even threatened mutiny for a time; but after this the men cooled down, and the Rover was a far happier ship.
“‘Then came our first battle.
“‘We sighted a Spanish man-o’-war bearing down on us one morning; for we had already captured several of their merchantmen, robbed them of everything that was valuable, and after putting those of the crew and passengers whose lives we had spared into boats and turning them adrift, set fire to the vessels.