My host asked many questions about the Spaniards, while he produced for supper a piece of dried beef, prepared over the slow fire which I had seen, and which being called ‘boucan’ gave to those who make it the name of ‘Buccaneers.’ I found it somewhat tough, but relishing and wholesome. After supper, we had brandy and rum, tempered by water, and while drinking it very sociably, my comrade informed me that he was a native of Cornwall, and that his name was Treveltham; but that here, following a custom which was universal among the Buccaneers, he had changed it for a nickname, or _nomme de guerre_, by which only he was known to the generality of his comrades. His Christian appellation being Nicholas, he was called Nicky Hamstring, a whimsical appellation, which set me laughing heartily. He had been on the coast since the end of the last rainy season, and liked the life well. The bay on the banks of which we were, he told me, was the estuary of a river called Le Marmousette, and about it there were much wild cattle. The English and the French Buccaneers lived here generally good friends. ‘Not but,’ said he, ‘that sometimes when the rum has gone round, there is not a brawl, and it may be a stick with a knife; but after all the island is big enough for all, and the cattle are many enough for all, and so we love each other, and hate Jack Spaniard.’ While we were talking, we heard loud shouting and singing without, great roaring choruses both in French and English, and oftimes a Lingua Franca, which was a compound of the two, but the burden of all being words of hatred and contempt of the Spaniards. Once or twice I thought the singers would have entered our hut, for the door had neither lock nor bar, but they did not, and as the night wore on, everything became silent except the dogs, who, having been unloosed from their kennels to act as sentinels, growled hoarsely along the beach. Having drunk and talked as much as we chose, we went to bed, I having, indeed, been asleep all through several long stories which Nicky recounted of the exploits and bravery of the Buccaneers, my drowsiness being easily excused to my companion by the long journey I had come that day. CHAPTER IV. OF THE LIFE OF A BUCCANEER.