ed, starting up, that my hands were free from the stain of Blood
unrighteously spilt.

"No offence, Brother Dangerous," continued the Captain. "In our line of
life we ar'n't particular. It wouldn't take very dirty weather to make
our Ensign look like a Black Flag. Piracy and Privateering--they both
begin with a P. I thought you had something o' that sort on your mind,
because you took it so woundily about being hanged."

"I have had a strange life," I answered faintly.

"No doubt about that," says the Captain. "So have I, Brother, and not an
over-good one: that's why I asked you. If the old woman hadn't been in
the oven herself, she'd never have gone there to look for her daughter.
But have you anything on your mind, Brother? Is there anything that
Billy Blokes can do for you?"

I answered, very gratefully, that there was nothing I could think of.

"'Cause why," he resumed, "if there is, you have only to sing out. If
you think you're like to slip your Cable and would like to say
something, we've got a Padre on board out of the last Prize, and he
shall come and do the Right Thing for you. You don't know anything about
his lingo; but what odds is that? Spanish, or Thieves' Latin, or
rightdown Cockney,--it's all one when the word's given to pipe all
hands."

I answered that I was no Papist, but a humble member of the Church of
England as by Law established.

"Of course," concluded the Captain. "So am I. God bless King George and
the Protestant Succession, and confound the Pope, the Devil, and the
Pretender! But any Port in a storm, you know; and a Padre's better than
no Prayers at all. I've done all I could for you, Brother. I've read you
most part of the story of Bel and the Dragon, likewise the Articles of
War, and a lot of psalms out of Sternhold and Hopkins; and now, if you
feel skeery about losing the number of your mess, I'll make your Will
for you, to be all shipshape before the Big Wigs of London. There must
be a matter of Four Hundred Pounds coming to you already for your share
of Plunder; and no one shall say that Billy Blokes ever robbed a
Messmate of even a twopenny tester of his Rights."

Again I thanked this singular person, who, for all his Addictedness to
Rum-and-Water, of which he drank vast quantities, was one of the most
Sagacious men I have known. But I told him that I had neither kith nor
kin belonging to me; that I did not even know the name of my Father and
Mother; and that my Grandmother, e