“Well! Your name?”
“Harry Crawford, at your service.”
The two men stopped dead still, staring at him. Crawford, faintly amused, smiled.
“Why, zounds!” broke out the leader. “Hal Crawford, the pirate! Two hundred pound on his head in Boston!”
“This is not Boston,” said Crawford, though his eyes narrowed. “Plague take you, stare! I’m for the pasty.”
He whipped out his knife and attacked the contents of the battered silver dish. The two men exchanged a glance, then without more ado pulled forward a couple of stools and joined in the assault, knives and fingers ravenously at work.
No word was exchanged, but Crawford was by this time perfectly aware of the profession, if not the identity, of his visitors. During the past forty years the whole American coast, even into Hudson Bay, had been swept by pirates; small fry, most of them, fur-pirates, rum pirates, reckless sailormen who would land to sack a town or would lay a ship aboard and count it all in the day’s work. Others followed the freebooting trade more seriously and made of it a profession. Of this latter class, thought Crawford, were the visitors. He had somewhere heard the name of Frontin—and presently placed it.
Within five minutes the pasty, among three famished men, had been scraped to the last crumb, and the bottle of wine was empty. Crawford leaned back, refilled his pipe, and surveyed the other two men with a whimsical air.
“Help yourselves to pipes, gentlemen! This house, as the Spanish say, is yours.”
Frontin, the thin man, grinned in his saturnine way.