"No," said Humphrey, sadly; "I could not do that and leave my men." "Faix, and they'd leave ye if they got a chance, sor." "How are they all!" "Oh, they're getting right enough," said Dinny. "Ye've been the worst of 'em all yerself, and if ye don't make haste ye'll be last." "But tell me, my lad, why am I kept in prison!" "Tell ye why you're kept in prison?" "Yes." "An' ye want to know! Well, divil a wan of us can tell, unless it's the skipper's took a fancy to ye bekase ye're such a divil to fight, and he wants ye to jyne the rigiment." "Regiment! Why, you've been a soldier!" "And is it me a sodjer! Why, ye'll be wanting to make out next that I was a desarther when was only a prishner of war." Humphrey sighed. "Sure, and ye're wanting something, sor. What'll I get ye! The skipper said ye were to have iverything you wanted." "Then give me my liberty, my man, and let me go back to England--and disgrace." "Sure, and I wouldn't go back to England to get that, sor. I'd sooner shtop here. The skipper's always telling Bart to look afther ye well." "Why?" said Humphrey, sharply. "Why?" said Dinny, scratching his head; "perhaps he wants to get ye in good condition before ye're hung." "Hung?" "Yis, sor. That's what Black Mazzard says." "Is that the man who tried to cut me down with a boarding-axe?" "That's the gintleman, sor; and now let me put ye tidy, and lay yer bed shtraight. Sure, and ye've got an illigant cabin here, as is good enough for a juke. Look at the ornaments on the walls." "Are there any more places like this?" "Anny more! Sure, the wood's full of 'em." "But about here?" "About here! Oh, this is only a little place. Sure, we all live here always when we ar'n't aboard the schooner." "Ah, yes! The schooner. She was quite destroyed, was she not?" "Divil a bit, sor. Your boys didn't shoot straight enough. The ship ye came in was, afther we'd got all we wanted out of her. She was burnt to the wather's edge, and then she sank off the reef." Humphrey groaned. "Ye needn't do that, sor, for she was a very owld boat, and not safe for a journey home. Mak' yer mind aisy, and mak' this yer home. There's plinty of room for ye, and--whisht! here's the captain coming. What'll he be doing here?" "The captain!" cried Humphrey. "Then that man took my message." "What message, sor?" At that moment the steps which had been heard coming as it were down some long stone corridor halted at the doorway of the prisoner's chamber, someone drew aside a heavy rug, and the buccaneer, wearing a broad-leafed hat which shaded his face, entered the place. "You can go, Dinny." "Yis, sor, I'm going," said Dinny, obsequiously; and, after a glance at the prisoner, he hurriedly obeyed. There was only a gloomy greenish twilight in the old chamber, such light as there was striking in through the forest-shaded window, and with his back to this, and retaining his hat, the captain seated himself upon a rug covered chest.