The two pirates turned to each other for consultation, irresolute, but
evidently impressed by the fact that their prize did not purpose to
hoist sail and make a run for it.
"What ho! mates?" demanded the captain, in as gruff a voice as he
could compass: "Ye've heard his speech, and he has struck his flag."
"Suppose the villain plays us false," rejoined the "mates" or rather,
the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was
difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I
rarely had smiled at all.
The captain turned to one side, so that now I could see both him and
his crew. The leader was as fine a specimen of boy as you could have
asked, sturdy of bare legs, brown of face, red of hair, ragged and
tumbled of garb. His crew was active though slightly less robust, a
fair-haired, light-skinned chap, blue-eyed, and somewhat better clad
than his companion. There was something winning about his face. At a
glance I knew his soul. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, in
the bud. My heart leaped out to him instinctively in a great impulse
of sympathy and understanding. Indeed, suddenly, I felt the blood
tingle through my hair. I looked upon life as I had not these three
years. The imagination of Youth, the glamour of Adventure, lay here
before me; things I cruelly had missed these last few years, it seemed
to me.
"How, now, shipmates?" I remarked mildly. "Wouldst doubt the faith of
one who himself hath flown the Jolly Rover? Cease your fears and come
aboard--that is to say, come ashore."
"Git out, Jimmy," I heard the captain say in a low voice, after a
moment of indecision. "Keep him covered till I tie her up."
Jimmy, the fair-haired pirate, hauled in on the alders and flung a
grappling iron aboard my bank, which presently he ascended. As he
stood free from the screening fringe of bushes, I saw that he was
slender, and not very tall, one not wholly suited by nature to his
stern calling. His once white jacket now was soiled, and one leg of
his knickers was loose, from his scramble up the bank. He was belted
beyond all earl-like need; wore indeed two belts, which supported two
long hunting knives and a Malay kris, such as we now get from the
Philippines; as well as a revolver large beyond all proportion to his
own size. A second revolver of like dimensions now trembled in his
hand, and even though its direction toward me was no more than
general, I resumed the goose-flesh underneath my waistcoat, for no man
could tell what might happen. In none of my works with dangerous big
game have I felt a similar uneasiness; no, nor even in the little
affair in China where the Boxers held us up, did I ever really
consider the issue more in doubt. It pleased me, however, to make no
movement of offense or defense; and luckily the revolver was not
discharged.