“‘Don’t you tech me! don’t you tech me!’ screamed old Halyard.

“Black Pedro stopped and took careful aim, with the last of his fourteen pistols.  He pulled the trigger, but there was no report.  Something had gone wrong with the priming.  The bo’s’n reached the boat, shoved off, and started to row for the ship.  There was no other boat, and Pedro could only watch him.  The old man rowed to ‘The Angel of Death,’ climbed aboard, and commenced, with the help of the boy, who had been left there, to get up the foresail.  Then they hoisted the anchor, and the ‘Angel’ moved slowly out of the harbor.  Black Pedro sat down on the beach, and watched it fade from sight.  When night fell ‘The Angel of Death’ was only a speck on the horizon.  Then the pirate chief returned to his cottage.

“On the following day a dreadful storm arose.  Black Pedro knew that no ship, manned only by an aged bo’s’n and a cabin-boy, could live through such a tempest.  A few days later his worst fears were realized, for by the wreckage that was washed ashore, he knew that ‘The Angel of Death’ had gone to pieces in the storm.  When The Plank itself, worn smooth on its upper side by the hundreds of feet that had passed over it, was tossed upon the shores of Rum Island, the pirate sat down on the sand and sobbed aloud.  He knew that old Halyard and the cabin-boy must have perished, and the noblest crew of buccaneers on whom the sun had ever shone, were forever disbanded, and that he, their chief, was now the last of the pirates, alone and deserted on an undiscovered and unknown island.

“And there he lives to this day.”

CHAPTER IV

WELL BURIED TREASURE

When Mr. Daddles finished his story there was a moment’s silence.  Then Ed Mason asked: 

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?” inquired Mr. Daddles, “isn’t that sad enough, just as it is?”

“It’s sad enough,” said Captain Bannister, “it’s sad enough, all right.  Once or twice I thought I’d bust right out cryin’.”

And the Captain chuckled a little, choked, and wheezed.

“What beats me,” he went on, “is where you picked up a yarn like that,—­for you haint follered the sea very much, I take it?”

“Not very much,” said Mr. Daddles.

“Not that yer troubles with that there canoe proves anything,” returned the skipper, “for foolisher things was never invented.  I wouldn’t git into one of ’em not if you was to give me a thousand dollars.  No, sir.”

“Oh, my experience of a sailor’s life has been limited,” said the new passenger.  “To tell the truth, I’ve never been as far East as this but once before.  I was here for a few days, summer before last.  My uncle lives at Bailey’s Harbor, on Little Duck Island.”

“Does he?” asked Jimmy Toppan,—­“What’s his name?”

“Alfred Peabody.”

“Is he your uncle?” exclaimed the Captain.  “I know his house,—­up there on the hill, aint it?”