By this the man in black and silver had recovered his breath and his equanimity.  “Have you no commission with which to honor me, noble captain?” he asked in gently reproachful tones.  “Have you forgot how often you were wont to employ me in those sweet days when your eyes were black?”

“By no means, Master Paradise,” I said courteously.  “I desire your company and that of the gentleman from Lima.  You will go with me to bring up the rest of my party.  The three gentlemen of the broken head, the bushy ruff, which I protest is vastly becoming, and the wounded shoulder will escort us.”

“The rest of your party?” said Paradise softly.

“Ay,” I answered nonchalantly.  “They are down the beach and around the point warming themselves by a fire which this piled-up sand hides from you.  Despite the sunshine it is a biting air.  Let us be going!  This island wearies me, and I am anxious to be on board ship and away.”

“So small an escort scarce befits so great a captain,” he said.  “We will all attend you.”  One and all started forward.

I called to mind and gave utterance to all the oaths I had heard in the wars.  “I entertain you for my subordinate whom I command, and not who commands me!” I cried, when my memory failed me.  “As for you, you dogs, who would question your captain and his doings, stay where you are, if you would not be lessoned in earnest!”

Sheer audacity is at times the surest steed a man can bestride.  Now at least it did me good service.  With oaths and grunts of admiration the pirates stayed where they were, and went about their business of launching the boats and stripping the body of Red Gil, while the man in black and silver, the Spaniard, the two gravediggers, the knave with the wounded shoulder, and myself walked briskly up the beach.

With these five at my heels I strode up to the dying fire and to those who had sprung to their feet at our approach.  “Sparrow,” I said easily, “luck being with us as usual, I have fallen in with a party of rovers.  I have told them who I am,—­that Kirby, to wit, whom an injurious world calls the blackest pirate unhanged,—­and I have recounted to them how the great galleon which I took some months ago went down yesterday with all on board, you and I with these others being the sole survivors.  By dint of a little persuasion they have elected me their captain, and we will go on board directly and set sail for the Indies, a hunting ground which we never should have left.  You need not look so blank; you shall be my mate and right hand still.”  I turned to the five who formed my escort.  “This, gentlemen, is my mate, Jeremy Sparrow by name, who hath a taste for divinity that in no wise interferes with his taste for a galleon or a guarda costa.  This man, Diccon Demon by name, was of my crew.  The gentleman without a sword is my prisoner, taken by me from the last ship I sunk.  How he, an Englishman, came to be upon a Spanish bark I have not found leisure to inquire.  The lady is my prisoner, also.”