Black Bartlemys Treasure

"Mine is a strange, wild story, Martin, but needs must I tell it and in few words as may be. Fifteen years agone (or thereabouts) I became one of that league known as the Brotherhood of the Coast and swore comradeship with one Nicholas Frant, a Kent man, even as I. Now though I was full young and a cautious man, yet, having a natural hatred of Spaniards and their ways, I wrought right well against them, and was mighty diligent in many desperate affrays against their ships and along the Coast. 'Twas I (and my good comrade Nick Frant) with sixteen lusty lads took sea in an open pinnace and captured the great treasure galleon 'Dolores del Principe' off Carthagena, and what with all this, Martin, and my being blessed with some education and a gift of adding two and two together, I got me rapid advancement in the Brotherhood until--well, shipmate, I that am poor and solitary was once rich and with nigh a thousand bully fellows at command. And then it was that I fell in with that arch-devil, that master rogue whose deeds had long been a terror throughout the Main, a fellow more bloody than any Spaniard, more treacherous than any Portugal, and more cruel than any Indian--Inca, Mosquito, Maya or Aztec, and this man an Englishman, and one of birth and breeding, who hid his identity under the name of Bartlemy. I met him first in Tortuga where we o' the Brotherhood lay, six stout ships and nigh four hundred men convened for an expedition against Santa Catalina, and this for two reasons, first, because 'twas a notable rich city, and second, to rescue certain of the Brotherhood that lay there waiting to be burnt at the next auto-de-fe. Well, Martin, 'tis upon a certain evening that this Bartlemy comes aboard my ship and with him his mate, by name Tressady. And never was greater difference than 'twixt these two, Tressady being a great, wild fellow with a steel hook in place of his left hand, d'ye see, and Bartlemy a slender, dainty-seeming, fiendly-smiling gentleman, very nice as to speech and deportment and clad in the latest mode, from curling periwig to jewelled shoe-buckles.

"'Captain Penfeather,' says he, 'Your most dutiful, humble--ha, let me parish but here is curst reek o' tar!' with which, Martin, he claps a jewelled pomander to the delicate nose of him. 'You've heard of me, I think, Captain,' says he, 'and of my ship, yonder, the "Ladies' Delight?"' I told him I had, Martin, bluntly and to the point, whereat he laughs and bows and forthwith proffers to aid us against Santa Catalina, the which I refused forthwith. But my council of captains, seeing his ship was larger than any we possessed and exceeding well armed and manned, overruled me, and the end of it was we sailed, six ships of the Brotherhood and this accursed pirate.