tated what had occurred,
when the president, who knew Captain Benbow, greeted him politely,
expressed his regret that he should have to inconvenience him for such a
trifle, but observed that he must adhere to the laws; that as soon as he
had shown what the sack contained he should be at liberty to proceed
wherever he might choose.

"Well, Senor, since you insist on seeing my salt provisions, I will show
them to you," said the Captain. "Jumbo, open that sack and throw the
contents out on the table."

Jumbo did as he was ordered, the whites of his eyes glancing, and his
mouth at a broad grin, for he was certainly not ignorant of what he had
been carrying, and, untying the string, out rolled thirteen gory heads.
The magistrates started back, some with amazement, others with horror
expressed in their countenances.

"There they are," cried the Captain, "and at your service."

"How did you become possessed of them?" asked the president.

"This bright sabre served me to cut the fruit from the branches," he
answered, and then gave an account of how he had been attacked by the
Sallee rover, and succeeded in driving her off, after she had lost a
large number of her men, besides those who had fallen on the deck of his
ship, and whose heads he now exhibited.

The magistrates were greatly astonished, and highly delighted at his
gallantry, for the Moors had much interfered with their trade of late,
and had cut off a number of their ships. For although Admiral Blake,
during Cromwell's firm rule, had punished them severely and kept them in
order, they had, since Charles the Second came to the throne, resumed
their predatory habits with greater vigour than ever, while the
Governments of southern Europe had been too much engaged with their own
internal affairs to send any of their squadrons to keep them in order.
The president highly complimented Captain Benbow on his gallantry, and
invited him to a public banquet, to take place the next day in the
Town-Hall. What became of the heads history does not narrate. They
were probably returned to their sack after due note had been taken of
them, and carried out to sea, and sunk with a shot or two in deep water;
for it would certainly have been believed that they would not rest
quietly on Christian soil, the Spaniards overlooking the fact that the
ancestors of these Moors had once possessed the country as lords and
masters.

Through Captain Benbow's liberality, Roger and Stephen obta