He claimed to be a Dutchman when the pirates had flocked over the side of his ship and clustered about him, brilliant with their new silk breeches and formidable with an assortment of cutlasses and pistols. This unconcerned Dutchman seems to have been far from temperamental, and entirely unacquainted with nervousness. He casually spat over the side and asked who they were that thus jumped a fellow’s ship. He had no trouble finding folk among the pirates who could palaver enough Dutch to get along with. He added that there was a pretty good gain in the ship,--sugar to the value of one hundred and fifty pounds and gold and silver and Portuguese coins worth about fifty more. It was not his property. He lolled against the mast, watching with dull eye the transfer of the sugar from the Portuguese to the _Charles_, drawn in closer for that purpose. He noted without a flicker of expression the fine silk breeches of these sailors, and gazed ponderingly down at his own garments of canvas. Silk breeches, eh? He strolled slowly up and down the deck in the hard labor of reflection. Silk breeches did it. With the last boatload of cargo went the Dutchman. He was made to feel right at home, Quelch seeing his value as a pilot, an interpreter and an extraordinarily cool hand. The _Charles_ and her tender put out to sea, leaving the little town of Grande Island provender for ten years’ wonder. The Dutch recruit had many talks with the men. And all the time he was thinking the new situation through. He desired to come right down to a definite business basis. He appraised carefully the accumulated plunder and learned of the money holdings of the quartermaster. It would do very well; he too would have a pair of silk breeches. He put in his claim for a full share of everything, past, present and to come. This demand became the talk of the ships. It grew and grew until it split the harmony of the floating community. At last in a deserted inlet, where the woods ran darkly down to a silver beach, the whole affair was threshed out. All hands were trumpeted up by him of the ponderous antique titles. The Dutchman stolidly and unmistakably stated his terms. Some spoke in favor of them, others against; and at last a vote for and against was taken. The majority determined that the Dutchman was not entitled to a full share. He turned a quid of tobacco about in his hairy cheek and gazed up at the sky. He had a trump card to play, and a very firm nerve to cast it. He said his conditions would be met or he would inform against them all. Just whom he would inform is not apparent; nor is it clear what damage an informer could do to people who robbed right under the guns of forts, and took ships from their anchor within a stone’s throw of town.