uests should be granted, and
spoke a few words of consolation and hope. So many good people of late
had perished on the gibbet, that hanging was no longer ignominious. The
best and purest had died thus.

The jury had been out but a few moments, when a great hub-bub arose
without, and voices could be heard crying:

"Wait! wait! stay your verdict!"

A crowd of men rushed into the court room with a tall young man, whose
weather-beaten face indicated a seafaring life, at the head of them. His
cruel gray eyes, bold manner, as well as the pistols and cutlass at his
belt, gave him the appearance of a pirate.

"I am not dead, I trow! Who said I was dead?" he asked.

"Samuel Williams! Alive!" cried a score of voices.

"Who said I was murdered?"

Sarah Williams rose with a shriek and stared at her husband, as if he
had been an apparition, while all the witnesses, including the Rev. Mr.
Parris, were covered with confusion. The jury was recalled and Samuel
Williams himself took the stand. He stated:

"I left my wife, because I could not live with her, and, marry! I would
prefer hanging to existence with her. I went to New York, where Captain
Robert Kidd was beating up recruits to sail as a privateer in the
_Adventurer_ to protect commerce against the French privateers and
sea-robbers. I enlisted and then, with one hundred and fifty men, Kidd
did good service on the American coast, and we went to the Indian Ocean
to attack pirates. Our plunder from the pirates made us long to gain
more booty, and Kidd became a pirate himself. Armed with cutlasses and
pistols, we were made to board many vessels, English as well as other
nationalities. We went to South America, the West Indies, and finally
came to New York, where Captain Kidd, one dark night, landed on
Gardiner's Island, east of Long Island, with an enormous treasure of
gold, jewels and precious stones, which he buried in the earth. From
there we came to Boston. A pardon had been granted for all, save Kidd,
who was yesterday arrested and sent to England to be tried.[F] I heard
that a man had been arrested for my murder, and I hastened to save him."

[Footnote F: Kidd was subsequently tried, condemned, and hung in
chains; but his treasure on Gardiner's Island has not to this day been
found.]

The romantic story of the returned pirate produced the most profound
sensation among the people in the court room. The jury had just voted on
a verdict of guilty, when they were