e Scourge of The Sea. Me an' Jean Lafitte, we follow
Black Bart the Avenger, to the Spanish Main. Auntie, pass me the
bacon, please. I'm just about starved."

Mrs. Daniver, as was her custom, ate a very substantial breakfast;
Helena, almost none at all; nor had I much taste for food. In some
way, our constraint insensibly extended to all the party, much to
L'Olonnois' disgust. "It's _her_ fault!" I overheard him say to his
mate. "Women can't play no games. An' we was havin' such a bully
chance! Now, like's not, we won't stay here longer'n it'll take to get
things back to the boat again. I don't want to go back home--I'd
rather be a pirate; an' so'd any fellow."

"Sure he would," assented Jean. They did not see me, behind the tent.

"Somethin's wrong," began L'Olonnois, portentously.

"What'd you guess?" queried Lafitte. "Looks to me like it was
somethin' between him an' the fair captive."

"That's just it--that's just what I said! Now, if Black Bart lets his
whiskers grow, an' Auntie Helena wears them rings, ain't it just like
in the book? Course it is! But here they go, don't eat nothin', don't
talk none to nobody."

"I'll tell you what!" began Lafitte.

"Uh-huh, what?" demanded L'Olonnois.

"A great wrong has been did our brave leader by yon heartless jade;
that's what!"

"You betcher life they has. He's on the square, an' look what he done
for us--look how he managed things all the way down to here. Anybody
else couldn't have got away with this. Anybody else'd never a' went
out there last night after John, just a Chink, thataway. An' her!"

Jimmy's disapproval of his auntie, as thus expressed, was extreme. I
was now about to step away, but feared detection, so unwillingly heard
on.

"But he can't see no one else but yon fickle jade!" commented Jean
Lafitte, "unworthy as she is of a bold chief's regard!"

"Nope. That's what's goin' to make all the trouble. I'll tell you
what!"

"What?"

"We'll have to fix it up, somehow."

"How'd you mean?"

"Why, reason it out with 'em both."

Jean apparently shook his head, or had some look of dubiousness, for
L'Olonnois went on.

"We _gotta_ do it, somehow. If we don't, we'll about have to go back
home; an' who wants to go back home from a good old desert island like
this here. _So_ now----"

"Uh, huh?"

"Why, I'll tell you, now. You see, I got some pull with her--the fair
captive. She used to lick me, but she don't dast to try it on here on
a desert is