five and forty; his face a grotesque union of insolence and
drollery; the eyes black as jet, shaded by brows so arched, as to give
always the idea of laughing to a countenance, the lower part of which,
shrouded in beard and moustache, was intended to look stern and savage.

His dress was a short blue frock, beneath which he wore a jersey shirt,
striped in various colours, across which a broad buff leather belt,
loosely slung, supported four pistols and a dirk; jack boots reached
about the middle of the thigh, and were attached to his waist by thongs
of strong leather, no needless precaution apparently, as in their
looseness the wearer might at any moment have stepped freely from them;
a black handkerchief, loosely knotted round his neck, displayed a
throat brawny and massive as a bull's, and imparted to the whole head an
appearance of great size--the first impression every stranger conceived
regarding him.

"Ah! ah! Lawler, you here; how goes it, my old friend? Sit down here,
and tell me all your rogueries since we parted. _Par St, Pierre_, Henry,
this is the veriest _fripon_ in the kingdom"--Talbot bowed, and with a
sweetly courteous smile saluted Lanty, as if accepting the speech in the
light of an introduction--"a fellow that in the way of his trade could
cheat the Saint Pere himself."

"Where's the others, Captain Jack?" said Mary, whose patience all this
time endured a severe trial--"where's the rest?"

"_Place pour la potage! Ma Mie!_--soup before a story; you shall hear
every thing by and by. Let us have the supper at once."

Lanty chimed in a willing assent to this proposition, and in a few
moments the meat smoked upon the table, around which the whole party
took their places with evident good-will.

"While Mary performed her attentions as hostess, by heaping up each
plate, and ever supplying the deficiency caused by the appetite of
the guests, the others eat on like hungry men. Captain Jacques alone
intermingling with the duties of the table, a stray remark from time to
time.

"_Ventre bleu!_ how it blows; if it veers more to the southard, there
will be a heavy strain on that cable. _Trinquons mon ami, Trinquons
toujours; Ma belle Marie_, you eat nothing."

"'Tis unasy I am, Captain Jack, about what's become of the others," said
Mrs. M'Kelly.

"Another bumper, _Ma Mie_, and I'm ready for the story--the more as it
is a brief one. _Allons donc_--now for it. We left the bay about nine
o'clock, or half-p