The man called captain nodded. A great bullock of a fellow he stood, hands on hips, gazing frowningly down at the bay, apparently constructing the strategy of an impending move. He had a flattish, three-cornered hat--somewhat too small for his head--pushed forward over his eyes; the breeches, stockings and buckled shoes of the period had evidently had long and hard wear in contrast with the brilliant sash about his waist from which protruded the handle of a dirk. One great, sinewy hand dangled a belt to which was fastened a thick cutlass. If he were captain, then all these fellows strewn about the grass must be his subordinates. Honest men they no doubt accounted themselves, but their looks belied them; no ordinary man would have cared to picnic with that group in their present beautiful retreat. Their complexions were as colorful as the sashes which almost all of them affected: here was the blond Scandinavian, with his blue, wistful, deep-sea eyes and tawny hair and beard: beside him would be a swart Continental--French predominantly--chattering constantly and continually winding his beard in ringlets about his forefinger, and not a few men of the blackest ebon, the hue of the West Indian negro, not the lighter tint of the native Sakalava. Whatever his color, every man there was capable of committing any violence; that was his qualification for companionship. A hard group, and how hard must the leader of it be! Well, John Bowen, the brawny chieftain, was a hard man. Although maritime history has failed to spell his name with capital letters, John Bowen was one of the most willing little workers in the red trade of sea robbery. Where he came from and what his finish was we do not certainly know, but while his keel danced its brief hour upon the waters of the Indian Ocean, John Bowen displayed those qualities of resolution, ruthlessness and rapidity which ordinarily earned one a rapid promotion in piracy, and not infrequently a sequential elevation, before an admiring and applauding populace, at the end of the king’s rope.