"Heaven preserve us from it! Stuff!" the buccaneer added, carelessly—"Think no more about it, brother; what is done is done—let us go ahead all the same."
And he left the cabin, apparently quite unaffected by the news.
[CHAPTER XXV.]
FRAY ARSENIO.
Let us now tell the reader who these buccaneers were of whom we have several times spoken, and what was the origin of the name given them, and which they gave themselves.
The red Caribs of the Antilles were accustomed, when they made prisoners in the obstinate contests they waged with each other, or which they carried on against the whites, to cut their prisoners into small pieces, and lay them upon a species of small hurdles, under which they lit a fire.
These hurdles were called barbacoas, the spot where they were set up boucans, and the operation boucaning, to signify at the same time roasting and smoking.
It was from this that the French boucaniers (anglicised into buccaneers) derived their name, with this difference, that they did to animals what the others did to men.