us was hurt.

"`Heave the carcases overboard, and swab up the decks,' cried our
skipper, as coolly as if nothing had happened.

"We had a pretty job to clean the ship afterwards, but we didn't mind
the trouble, seeing that we had saved our lives, and the skipper was
well content to lose the dozen casks of batter which had served us so
good a turn.

"That skipper of ours had no small amount of humour in his composition,
though it was somewhat of a grim character. Before we hove the bodies
overboard, he ordered us to cut off the heads of those who had fallen,
forty in number, and to pickle them in the empty butter casks, lest, as
he said, his account of the transaction might be disbelieved by the good
people of Jamaica.

"We arrived safely in Kingston harbour, where the merchants and a lot of
other persons came on board. Many of our visitors, when they heard the
skipper describe the way we had beaten off the pirates, looked
incredulous.

"`Seeing is believing,' says he, and he ordered the casks which had been
kept on deck to be opened. It was mightily amusing to watch the way our
visitors looked at each other, when our skipper forthwith produced the
gory heads, among which was that of the captain of one of the piratical
craft and that of the first mate of the other.

"Some of them started back with horror, as well they might, for the
heads looked dreadful enough as they were pulled out in succession.

"`There's the whole score,' says the skipper, as we arranged them along
each side of the quarter-deck. `Now, gentlemen, what have you got to
say about my veracity?'

"After that, you may be sure the captain's word was never doubted. The
heads were then hove overboard, and it was said that Old Tom, the big
shark which used to cruise about between Port Royal and Kingston, got
the best part of them for his supper. I'm pretty sure he did, because
for many a day after that he was not seen, and some thought he had died
of indigestion by swallowing those pirates' heads. Howsomdever, he
wasn't dead after all, as poor Bob Rattan, an old messmate of mine,
found out to his cost. Just about two months had gone by, and Bob one
evening was trying to swim from his ship to the shore, when Old Tom
caught, him by the leg and hauled him to the bottom. His head was
washed ashore three days afterwards, bitten clean off, a certain proof
that Old Tom had swallowed the pirates' heads, and not finding them
agree with him, had left