"You forget the reward--there must be at least five hundred pounds on his head. Long-Sword is worth his weight in gold." "Long-Sword, did you say? Long-Sword the Corsair?" Marbury nodded. "It is the name he gave me." Jamison emitted a whistle of surprise. "Well I should say he _is_ a gold mine--it's a thousand guineas reward he is. I'll carry him straight to Annapolis--with your honor's permission, of course--and we shall see him doing the gallows dance according to the King's justice. Ho, ho! Ho, ho! I think I'll be quitting the sea, sir, and settling down.... Long-Sword! May the Lord save me! I must go and put him in double irons, at once. He may have a broken collar bone, and be locked in the cabin, but nothing but double irons will hold him safe." "And what of the pirate ship?" asked Parkington. "If Long-Sword is a prize, it should be a veritable treasure house." "I purposely refrained from examining her," Jamison answered. "I left that for Mr. Marbury." "I will come down, presently," said Marbury. "Meanwhile, you may proceed with making an inventory of the booty aboard." Jamison saluted and departed. The party finished the meal, and went out on the lawn. The dead had been taken away for burial, and the evidences of the late struggle were being removed. "I hope the house party is not ended," said George Marbury. "The ladies can come back, and, I am sure, feel perfectly safe." "I fancy that is for the ladies to decide," said Snowden:--"though I am quite willing for Mrs. Snowden to return. We, at least, have seen the last of the pirates, I imagine." The other men had the same opinion, though Herford thought that he would much prefer to have killed all the pirates, and not had a bunch running loose in the vicinity. "There is no danger to us," said Plater. "They will get out of the neighborhood about as fast as they can. They may do some marauding, on the march, but it will not be twice in the same place--and it will not be anything that will require time. They are in too great a hurry. I will wager, that they have already separated in twos and threes, to foregather at an appointed place--York or thereabouts. I too am quite willing for Mrs. Plater to return." And so it was, that he and Snowden and Constable were designated to go to Rose Hill and bring the ladies back--it being understood that nothing be said to them of the pirates' second attack. A little later, Marbury set out for the dock to inspect the pirate ship. As he was going down the steps, Parkington called to him, that, if he had no objection, he would be glad to accompany him. "Come along, sir," he answered--"but I think, if the others do not mind, they would better remain to welcome the ladies, and insure that the house is here for them--there is just a chance that the pirates may return." "Is not this attack most unusual?" Sir Edward asked, as they came in sight of the landing.