l was
again prepared, equally to encounter the hazards of the ocean or of
warfare. A long, blue, hazy streak, to the north, proclaimed the proximity
of the land; and some three or four light coasters of that region, which
were sailing nigh, announced how little of hostility existed in the
present purposes of the freebooters.

What those designs were, however, still remained a secret, buried in the
bosom of the Rover alone.

Doubt, wonder, and distrust were, each in its turn, to be traced, not only
in the features of his captives, but in those of his own crew. Throughout
the whole of the long night, which had succeeded the events of the
important day just past, he had been seen to pace the poop in brooding
silence. The little he had uttered was merely to direct the movements of
the vessel; and when any ventured, with other design, to approach his
person, a sign, that none there dared to disregard, secured him the
solitude he wished. Once or twice, indeed, the boy Roderick was seen
hovering at his elbow, but it was as a guardian spirit would be fancied to
linger near the object of its care, unobtrusively, and, it might almost be
added, invisible. When, however, the sun came burnished and glorious, out
of the waters of the east a gun was fired, to bring a coaster to the side
of the "Dolphin;" and then it seemed that the curtain was to be raised on
the closing scene of the drama. With his crew assembled on the deck
beneath, and the principal personages among his captives beside him on the
poop, the Rover addressed the former.

"Years have united us by a common fortune," he said: "We have long been
submissive to the same laws. If I have been prompt to punish, I have been
ready to obey. You cannot charge me with injustice. But the covenant is
now ended. I take back my pledge, and I return you your faiths. Nay, frown
not--hesitate not--murmur not! The compact ceases and our laws are ended.
Such were the conditions of the service. I give you your liberty, and
little do I claim in return. That you need have no grounds of reproach, I
bestow my treasure. See," he added, raising that bloody ensign with which
he had so often braved the power of the nations, and exhibiting beneath it
sacks of that metal which has so long governed the world; "see! This was
mine; it is now yours. It shall be put in yonder coaster: there I leave
you, to bestow it, yourselves, on those you may deem most worthy. Go; the
land is near. Disperse, for your