"We'll come directly. Duty before pleasure."
And so saying, the bucanier hurried down to the shore, and approached his companion, a short square-built man, who was walking up and down with folded arms, and whose dark olive countenance was so buried in an enormous beard, that scarcely any part of it, except a long fiery Bardolphian nose was visible. This man, so soon as he saw the pirate, assumed a less nonchalant attitude, and his hands fell by his side into the position proper to a subordinate.
"Nothing happened, lieutenant?" said Lafitte.
"So little, that I should almost doubt this to be the Miko's village, did not my eyes convince me of it. Beg pardon, captain, but what does it all mean?"
"I might ask you the same question," replied the other, sulkily.
"On our former visits," continued the lieutenant, "it was like a fair; but to-day not a creature comes near us. The squaws and girls seemed inclined to come down, but the men prevented them."
The lieutenant paused, for his commanding-officer was evidently getting more and more out of humour.
"How many hands have we below on Lake Sabine?"
"Thirty," was the reply. "To-morrow, the others will have finished clearing out."
"Giacomo and George," said the pirate, in a sharp peremptory tone, "will go back and take them orders to come up here. Let every man bring his musket and bayonet, pistols and hanger, and let them wait instructions in the great bend of the river, two miles below this place. Don't look down stream, and then at me," said he angrily to the lieutenant, who had cast a glance down the river. "The young Englishman has been here, and the old savage has let him go."