was waiting her coming, Joquita passed
all bounds. I killed her--with a single knife thrust, I remember.
She was buried right on the spot where the Tilden and Hendricks
flag pole afterwards stood in the campaign of 1876. It was with
bitter melancholy that I fancied the red stripes on the flag had
their color from the blood of the poor, foolish, jealous girl below.

[3] The Delicious Vice. Pages 23-24. First Series, 1907.

So it is, naturally enough, that to Allison, "Treasure Island" is the _ne
plus ultra_ and composite of all pirate stories, and this marvel of delight
he called to Waller's attention while they were incubating "The
Ogallallas." No sooner had Waller read it than the quatrain of Old Billy
Bones took possession of him and converted itself into music. The two of
them, as so many other thousands had done, bewailed the parsimony of
Stevenson in the use and development of the grisly suggestion and Waller
declared that if Allison would complete the verse he would set it to music.
That same night Allison composed three ragged but promising verses, at
white heat, while walking the floor in a cloud of tobacco smoke of his own
making. Next morning he gave them to Waller, who by night had the score and
words married and a day later the finished product went forward to Wm. A.
Pond & Co., and was published under the title of "A Piratical Ballad"[4].
Note that these initial verses are described as "ragged" and in this I am
also quoting Allison himself who in our various chats on his reminiscence
of "Treasure Island" has often given them this characterization. Be that as
it may these three verses were the foundation for the perfect six that were
to emerge after several years more of intermittent but patient development
and labor.

[4] A Piratical Ballad. Song for Bass or Deep Baritone. Words by
Young E. Allison; Music by Henry Waller; New York. Published by
William A. Pond & Co. Copyright 1891. [See pages 65-68.]

A PIRATICAL BALLAD.

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
The mate was fixed by the bo's'n's pike,
The bo's'n brained with a marlinspike,
And cookey's throat was marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten.
And there they lay,
All good dead men--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,
Yo-ho-ho and a bott