While most engaged in his own humours, two powerful seamen had, unheeded, entered the cabin; and, after silently depositing a human figure in a seat, they withdrew without speaking. It was before this personage that the Rover now found himself. The gaze was mutual, long, and uninterrupted by a syllable from either party. Surprise and indecision held the Rover mute, while wonder and alarm appeared to have literally frozen the faculties of the other. At length the former, suffering a quaint and peculiar smile to gleam for a moment across his countenance, said abruptly,— “I welcome sir Hector Homespun!” The eyes of the confounded tailor—for it was no other than that garrulous acquaintance of the reader who had fallen into the toils of the Rover—the eyes of the good-man rolled from right to left, embracing, in their wanderings, the medley of elegance and warlike preparation that they every where met never failing to return, from each greedy look, to devour the figure that stood before him. “I say, Welcome, sir Hector Homespun!” repeated the Rover. “The Lord will be lenient to the sins of a miserable father of seven small children!” ejaculated the tailor. “It is but little, valiant Pirate, that can be gotten from a hard-working, upright tradesman, who sits from the rising to the setting sun, bent over his labour.” “These are debasing terms for chivalry, sir Hector,” interrupted the Rover, laying his hand on the little riding whip, which had been thrown carelessly on the cabin table, and, tapping the shoulder of the tailor with the same, as though he were a sorcerer, and would disenchant the other with the touch: “Cheer up, honest and loyal subject: Fortune has at length ceased to frown: it is but a few hours since you complained that no custom came to your shop from this vessel, and now are you in a fair way to do the business of the whole ship.” “Ah! honourable and magnanimous Rover,” rejoined Homespun, whose fluency returned with his senses, “I am an impoverished and undone man. My life has been one of weary and probationary hardships. Five bloody and cruel wars”—— “Enough. I have said that Fortune was just beginning to smile. Clothes are as necessary to gentlemen of our profession as to the parish priest. You shall not baste a seam without your reward. Behold!” he added, touching the spring of a secret drawer, which flew open, and discovered a confused pile of gold, in which the coins of nearly every Christian people were blended, “we are not without the means of paying those who serve us faithfully.”