My piano and my violins also were in full sight; for the world of

music, as well as the world of sport and youth, I was deliberately

opening for myself, also in exchange for that closed world of affairs

which I had abandoned. Indeed, all manners of the impedimenta of a

well-to-do Japanese-cared-for bachelor were in evidence. To me, each

object was familiar and was cherished. I had never felt need to

apologize to any gentleman for my quarters or their contents--or to

any woman, for no woman had ever seen my home. I may admit that,

contrary to the belief of some, I was a rich man, far richer that I

had need or care to be; and since it was not due to my own ability

altogether nor in response to any real ambition of my own, I know I

will be pardoned for simply stating the truth. My one great ambition

in life was to forget; but if that might be best obtained in sport, in

study, or amid the gentle evidences of good living, so much the

better. Many men had called my father, stern and masterful man that he

was, a robber, a thief, a pirate--in great part, I suspect, in envy

that they themselves had not attained a like stature in similar

achievement. But no one had ever called his son a pirate--until now!

It made me oddly happy.

I ought to have been happy here all these years, able to do precisely

what I liked; but sometimes I felt myself strangely alone in the

world. I was always silent and apparently cold--though really, let me

whisper--only shy. Sometimes, even here, I found myself a trifle sad.

It is difficult to be a boy when one starts at thirty; especially

difficult if one has always been rather old and staid.

I tell all these things to explain that keen pleasure, that swift

exultation, that rush of the blood to my cheeks, which I felt when I

saw that my house and my way of life met the approval of real boys.

Pirates, too!

Swift, therefore, fell once more the magic curtain of romance. I heard

a strange voice, my own voice, saying: "Enter then, my bold mates, and

let us explore this castle which we have conquered." Yes, illusion

floated in through the windows on the pale light of the evening. This

was a castle we had taken; and the detail that I chanced to own it was

neither here nor there.

"Prisoner," began L'Olonnois sternly--he was usually spokesman, if not

always leader--"Prisoner, your life is spared for the time. Lead on!

Attempt to play us false, and your blood shall be spilled upon the

deck!"




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