Mary and Anne were so disgusted at this exhibition of cowardice, that they rushed to the hatchways and shouted to their dastardly companions to come up and help defend the ship, and when their entreaties were disregarded they were so enraged that they fired down into the hold, killing one of the frightened pirates and wounding several others. But their ship was taken, and Mary and Anne, in company with all the pirates who had been left alive, were put in irons and carried to England. When she was in prison, Mary declared that she and her husband had firmly intended to give up piracy and become private citizens. But when she was put on trial, the accounts of her deeds had a great deal more effect than her words upon her judges, and she was condemned to be executed. She was saved, however, from this fate by a fever of which she died soon after her conviction. The impetuous Anne was also condemned, but the course of justice is often very curious and difficult to understand, and this hard-hearted and sanguinary woman was reprieved and finally pardoned. Whether or not she continued to disport herself as a man we do not know, but it is certain that she was the last of the female pirates. There are a great many things which women can do as well as men, and there are many professions and lines of work from which they have been long debarred, and for which they are most admirably adapted, but it seems to me that piracy is not one of them. It is said that a woman's nature is apt to carry her too far, and I have never heard of any man pirate who would allow himself to become so enraged against the cowardice of his companions that he would deliberately fire down into the hold of a vessel containing his wife and a crowd of his former associates. Chapter XXIX A Pirate from Boyhood About the beginning of the eighteenth century there lived in Westminster, England, a boy who very early in life made a choice of a future career. Nearly all boys have ideas upon this subject, and while some think they would like to be presidents or generals of armies, others fancy that they would prefer to be explorers of unknown countries or to keep candy shops. But it generally happens that these youthful ideas are never carried out, and that the boy who would wish to sell candy because he likes to eat it, becomes a farmer on the western prairie, where confectionery is never seen, and the would-be general determines to study for the ministry.