There was Tarrant, lolling in a chair, and plainly having drunk too much; beside him was the big young man, showing his fine teeth in ready smiles, and keeping the bottle ready to his hand. Rehoboam Bulfinch sat with them, a meager drink before him, and folded up like a scraggy vulture. "Tarrant," said Mr. Sparhawk, "served his country for a short space, and has done his utmost to discredit it ever since. And Blake is as infamous a ruffian as ever trod a deck." "Blake," said Anthony, his attention quickened. "He of the great body and the engaging laugh," said Mr. Sparhawk. Anthony valued the rare drops upon his tongue with true appreciation; he looked toward the big young man and smiled. "There is a man," pronounced Mr. Sparhawk composedly, "who should have been gibbeted five years ago. He has done more mischief among shipping than any other sea-thief since Edward England; and England's day was a century since." "I heard a deal of Blake in the gulf and in the Carribbees a few years back," said Anthony. "The nearest I ever came to meeting him was while I was in a Spanish brig trading in those waters; two days out of Martinique we sighted him and ran him topsails under by nightfall. But once I had a communication from him." "Ah!" said Mr. Sparhawk. "He was a part and parcel of the New Orleans Government, and had a fleet of luggers among the islands and reefs at the mouth of the Mississippi. He had an agent in the city--a fat old spider whom I had to speak plainly to on one occasion; and because of this I could not afterwards get a ship, the owners being afraid to have on board a man who had affronted the pirate. So I began to give my attention to matters ashore, and it was then that Blake sent me the piece of writing. My interference had cost him some choice plunder, and he expressed regret that my change of occupation put him out of the way of meeting with me. But he hoped chance would throw us together at some future time." Under the swathes of bandages, Anthony cocked his eye in the direction of the freebooter. "Now that I see him," said he, "a thought troubles me. It may be that he does not know who I am." "It is possible," said Mr. Sparhawk. "On that chance," said the young man, "I think I will speak with him." He made his way through the gesticulating merchants and stood at the table where the three men sat. Tarrant looked at him with sneering insolence. Bulfinch pushed back his chair; but Blake's manner was of cheery tolerance. "What?" said Blake. "Is it possible? Here you are, active as a cat, and I thinking you on your back through a bad mishandling." "Your friends made a shrewd try to bring that state about," said Anthony. "But I managed to overreach them." His gaze went to Tarrant and back again to Blake. "Your one-eyed man seemed willing enough; but he has little talent for desperate work. In a crisis he fumbles like an old woman." Blake roared at this. "Like an old woman!" said he. "By God, I must tell him that!"