and all our crew had
bolted aloft. A few bronzed bandits posted abreast of each mast kept
them there by the menace of bell-mouthed blunderbusses pointed upwards.
Lumsden and Mercer had been each tied flat down to a spare spar. They
presented an appearance too ridiculous to awaken genuine compassion.
Major Cowper was made to sit on a hen-coop, and a bearded pirate, with
a red handkerchief tied round his head and a cutlass in his hand, stood
guard over him. The major looked angry and crestfallen. The rest of that
infamous crew, without losing a moment, rushed into the cuddy to loot
the cabins for wearing apparel, jewellery, and money. They squabbled
amongst themselves, throwing the things on deck into a great heap of
booty.

The schooner flying the Mexican flag remained hove to abeam. But in the
man in command of the boarding party I recognized Tomas Castro!

He _was_ a pirate. My surmises were correct. He looked the part to the
life, in a plumed hat, cloaked to the chin, and standing apart in a
saturnine dignity.

"Are you going to have us all murdered, Castro?" I asked, with
indignation. To my surprise he did not seem to recognize me; indeed, he
pretended not to see me at all. I might have been thin air for any sign
he gave of being aware of my presence; but, turning his back on me, he
addressed himself to the ignobly captive Lumsden, telling him that he,
Castro, was the commander of that Mexican schooner, and menacing him
with dreadful threats of vengeance for what he called the resistance we
had offered to a privateer of the Republic. I suppose he was pleased to
qualify with the name of armed resistance the miserable little pop of
the major's pocket pistol. To punish that audacity he announced that no
private property would be respected.

"You shall have to give up all the money on board," he yelled at the
wretched man lying there like a sheep ready for slaughter. The other
could only gasp and blink. Castro's ferocity was so remarkable that for
a moment it struck me as put on. There was no necessity for it. We were
meek and silent enough, only poor Major Cowper muttered:

"My wife and child. . . ."

The ragged brown men were pouring on deck from below; their arms full
of bundles. Half a dozen of them started to pull off the main hatch
tarpaulin. Up aloft the crew looked down with scared eyes. I began to
say excitedly, in my indignation, almost into his very ear:

"I know you, Tomas Castro--I know you--Tomas C