Now, all along my influence over Jill had been something quite marvellous. It really was as if his soul and mine were linked together in bonds that nothing could sever. Our very thoughts and imaginings were often precisely similar at the same time or times.
Well, knowing this, I should have been most careful in all I did and in all I said, and I will never, never forgive myself for not being so. For as you will presently see, my giving way to romantic imaginings and thoughts, that however pleasant they might be for the present, were really silly, had terrible results.
Tom Morley used to tell us tales of the pirates of the olden times, a race of marauders that I need hardly say have been long since swept from the face of the great deep.
Well, we liked ghosts best, perhaps, but next to them came pirates.
Being older than Jill—by five minutes—I really ought to have known better, yet one day I proposed playing at pirates. And soon this became a regular game of ours. Tom did not seem to mind it much, though he himself did not play, but he lent us a couple of old-fashioned horse pistols, and taught us to load and fire them—one lesson was enough. Of course we did not use anything more deadly than a little blotting-paper to keep the powder in.
Jill was always the pirate. He used to hail and board the ship from the bows in fine form, while I represented the crew. The battle would rage with pistols and sword-sticks, the former being dispensed with after the first discharge, and the fight then continued all over the deck, breast to breast, the excitement increasing every minute.
Sometimes the ship was captured, and I had to represent the crew to the bitter end, and walk the plank a dozen times.
What we did miss more than anything else was a black flag with skull and cross-bones.
Happy thought, we would make one!
We worked unknown to Tom at this, however. I bought the stuff, white and black, and it cost us a whole week or more to finish the job, but it was certainly a very creditable piece of work when finished. Quite a big thing too, and all complete, and ready to be run up to the halyards on which Tom hoisted a bit of bunting on high-days and holidays.