“Are ye carrying the brig home?”

“Where else?”

“Teach dead!” he muttered. “Mr. Fielding, for God’s sake, take me on. You’ll find me a true man.”

“Which d’ye choose—the bilboes or those bracelets?”

He answered me with a savage stare. I turned to go.

“Leave me some water,” he called.

I filled the mug afresh, placed it where he could put his lips to it, and locked the door upon him.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A QUAKER SKIPPER.

I looked in upon Teach again. The sight was piteous. The handcuffs gave a wild pathos to that picture of death. The sight was not to be borne. I removed the handcuffs, and then took a steady view of his face, and felt the man’s wrist to make sure that he was dead. He was stone dead; and I went on deck.

Miss Aurora leaned upon her elbows on the rail, looking at the Island of Amsterdam, that was fading into a dark blue cloud. I said: