l without a clapper; won't that do, Robin?"
Robin shook his head.--"Ay, Robin! Robin! you're right, after all. If it
were not for a woman, I'd never set foot on shore again: but I'm proud
of my little Barbara; and all the fine things you tell me of her, Robin,
make me still prouder;--her mother all over. I often think how happy I
shall be to call her daughter, when she won't be ashamed to own me: God
help me!"--and be it noted that Dalton crossed himself as he spoke--"God
help me! I often think that if ever I gain salvation, it will be through
the prayers of that girl. Would that she had been brought up in her
mother's way!"

"What would old Noll say to that papistical sign, master?" inquired
Robin.

"A plague on you and old Noll too! I never get a bit up towards heaven,
that something doesn't pull me back again."

"I'll send you up in a moment," said Robin, in a kind voice. "Your
daughter, Barbara----"

"Ay, that it is, that it is," muttered the Buccaneer; "my own, own
child!--the child of one who, I bless God, never lived to know that she
wedded (for I wedded her in holy church, at Dominica) a wild and wicked
rover. Our love was sudden and hot, as the sun under which we lived; and
I never left her but once from the time we became one. I had arranged
all, given up my ship and cargo,--and it was indeed a cargo of
crimes--at least, I thought so then. It was before the civil wars; or I
had again returned to England, or traded, no matter how. I flew to her
dwelling, with a light heart and a light step. What there? My
wife,--she who had hung so fondly round my neck and implored me not to
leave her,--was stretched on a low bamboo bed--dead, sir--dead! I might
have known it before I entered, had I but remembered that she knew my
step on the smooth walk, fell it ever so lightly, and would have met
me--but for death! And there too sat a black she-devil, stuffing my
infant's mouth with their vile food. I believe the hag thought I was
mad; for I caught the child in my arms, held it to my heart while I bent
over my wife's body, and kissed her cold, unreturning--for the first
time unreturning--lips; then flung myself out of the accursed
place,--ran with my burden to the shipowners, who had parted with me
most grudgingly,--and was scudding before the wind in less than twelve
hours, more at war with my own species than ever, and panting for
something to wreak my hatred on. At first I wished the infant dead, for
I saw her pining