tom. But, just as every body was shaking
hands, and wishing his neighbour joy at so happy a punishment coming over
the knaves, a West-Indiaman came into port, that had been robbed by the
Rover on the morning after the night in which it was thought they had all
gone into eternity together. And what makes the matter worse, boy, while
the King's ship was careening with her keel out, to stop the holes of
cannon balls, the pirate was sailing up and down the coast, as sound as
the day that the wrights first turned her from their hands!"

"Well, this is unheard of!" returned the countryman, on whom the tale was
beginning to make a sensible impression: "Is she a well-turned and comely
ship to the eye? or is it by any means certain that she is an actual
living vessel at all?"

"Opinions differ. Some say, yes; some say, no. But I am well acquainted
with a man who travelled a week in company with a mariner, who passed
within a hundred feet of her, in a gale of wind. Lucky it was for them,
that the hand of the Lord was felt so powerfully on the deep, and that the
Rover had enough to do to keep his own ship from foundering. The
acquaintance of my friend had a good view of both vessel and captain,
therefore, in perfect safety. He said, that the pirate was a man maybe
half as big again as the tall preacher over on the main, with hair of the
colour of the sun in a fog, and eyes that no man would like to look upon a
second time. He saw him as plainly as I see you; for the knave stood in
the rigging of his ship, beckoning, with a hand as big as a coat-flap, for
the honest trader to keep off, in order that the two vessels might not do
one another damage by coming foul."

"He was a bold mariner, that trader, to go so nigh such a merciless
rogue."

"I warrant you, Pardon, it was desperately against his will! But it was on
a night so dark--"

"Dark!" interrupted the other; by what contrivance then did he manage to
see so well?"

"No man can say!" answered the tailor, "but see he did, just in the
manner, and the very things I have named to you. More than that, he took
good note of the vessel, that he might know her, if chance, or Providence,
should ever happen to throw her again into his way. She was a long, black
ship, lying low in the water, like a snake in the grass, with a desperate
wicked look, and altogether of dishonest dimensions. Then, every body says
that she appears to sail faster than the clouds above, seeming to care
littl