y to be careful till we
had recruited ourselves. We at last attacked a large Spanish brig.
Some of her crew volunteered to join us; the rest shared the fate of
many of our victims. We set her on fire and left her. We found an
immense booty on board her; and it was necessary to repair to our island
to share it. The people quarrelled with me about the division. I was
also anxious to cruise among the Sooloo Islands, and to visit other
places to which I thought little Eva might have been carried. To this
they were opposed, instigated by the new hands. I grew furious, and
blew out the brains of one of the ringleaders. It silenced them for the
moment; but that night I found myself bound hand and foot, and that the
brig was under weigh. After being at sea about a week, I was landed on
this rock. I had no means of judging whereabouts it was. I was put on
shore at night, and the brig made sail again at night. They left me
neither arms, ammunition, nor food. At first I thought I should die;
but I found ample means of existence, and I resolved to live to be
revenged on those who had thus ill-used me. I felt all the time like a
caged hyena, and used to walk about the island, thinking how I could
escape. With some spars washed on shore I made the flag-staff you saw;
but I could take no other measures, for I had no tools to construct a
boat or even a raft. At last fever overtook me, and reduced me to the
condition in which I now am.

"Such is a short outline of my history; but I have more to say to you.
Some papers, to prove the claims of the children, kept in a tin case,
were entrusted to the faithful nurse, who had charge of them. I got
these papers from her, and they were in my pocket when I set the ship on
fire, and I have ever since preserved them, thinking they might be of
some use to me. I now return them, as they are of great importance to
you."

The dying pirate ceased his strange narrative. Prior and Fairburn at
once got him to give the names and addresses of people, and several
dates, and other particulars, which were afterwards of the greatest
importance to me. I was so overcome and astonished at what I had heard,
that I should have neglected to have done so. I eagerly received the
case, for I longed to learn who I was, which I supposed the papers in it
would inform me; but my desire to attend to the dying man would not then
allow me to look at them.

He might have done me much injury, but he had b