scal in the vessel, and you have strengthened my authority. They
fully believe you are what you assert from your behaviour, and I feel,
with you at my side, I shall get on better with these fellows than I
have done. But now, to keep up the idea, you must, of course, mess in
the cabin with me, and I can offer you clothes, not my own, but those of
the former captain, which will suit your shape and make."

I readily agreed with him; and, having equipped myself in the clothes he
offered me, which were handsome, I soon afterwards went on deck with
him, and received the greatest respect from the men as I passed them. A
cot was slung for me in the cabin, and I lived altogether with Captain
Toplift, who was a good-hearted, rough sort of a man, certainly wholly
unfit for the command of a vessel manned by such a set of miscreants,
and employed on such a service. He told me that he had been taken three
years before by a pirate vessel, and finding that he could navigate,
they had detained him by force, and that at last he had become
accustomed to his position.

"We all must live," said he, "and I had no other means of livelihood
left me; but it's sorely against my conscience, and that's the truth.
However, I am used to it now, and that reconciles you to anything,
except murder in cold blood, and that I never will consent to."

On my inquiring where they were about to cruise, he said, on the Spanish
Main.

"But," said I, "it is peace with the Spaniards just now."

"I hardly knew," said he, "it was peace. Not that peace makes any
difference to us, for we take everything; but you refer to myself, I
know, and I tell you frankly that I have preferred this cruise merely
that we may not fall in with English vessels, which we are not likely to
do there. I wish I was out of her with all my heart and soul."

"No doubt of it, Captain Toplift, I think you are sincere. Suppose you
put into one of the inlets of Jamaica, they won't know where we are; let
us take a boat on shore and leave her. I will provide for you, and you
shall gain your living in an honest way."

"God bless you, Sir," said he; "I will try what I can do. We must talk
the matter over, for they may suspect something, and then it would be
all over with us."

We continued to run down till we were in the latitude of the Virgin
Isles, and then we altered her course for Jamaica. The first and second
mates generally received information of Captain Toplift as to his
m