en the hatch, and he held
in his hand a sponge soaked with vinegar. "Which of you is--or rather
was--Captain Ralph Percy?" he asked, in a grave but pleasant voice.

"I am Captain Percy," I answered.

He looked at me with attention. "I have heard of you before," he said.
"I read the letter you wrote to Sir Edwyn Sandys, and thought it an
excellently conceived and manly epistle. What magic transformed a
gentleman and a soldier into a pirate?"

As he waited for me to speak, I gave him for answer, "Necessity."

"A sad metamorphosis," he said. "I had rather read of nymphs changed
into laurel and gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before the
officers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to say
for yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearly
some time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight is
now a thousandfold worse."

"I am perfectly aware of it," I said. "Am I to go in fetters?"

"No," he replied, with a smile. "I have no instructions on the subject,
but I will take it upon myself to free you from them,--even for the sake
of that excellently writ letter."

"Is not this gentleman to go too?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I have no orders to that effect."

While the men who were with him removed the irons from my wrists and
ankles he stood in silence, regarding me with a scrutiny so close that
it would have been offensive had I been in a position to take offense.
When they had finished I turned and held Jeremy's hand in mine for an
instant, then followed the new-comer to the ladder and out of the hold;
the two men coming after us, and resolving themselves above into a
guard. As we traversed the main deck we came upon Diccon, busy with two
or three others about the ports. He saw me, and, dropping the bar that
he held, started forward, to be plucked back by an angry arm. The men
who guarded me pushed in between us, and there was no word spoken by
either. I walked on, the gentleman at my side, and presently came to an
open port, and saw, with an intake of my breath, the sunshine, a dark
blue heaven flecked with white, and a quiet ocean. My companion glanced
at me keenly.

"Doubtless it seems fair enough, after that Cimmerian darkness below,"
he remarked. "Would you like to rest here a moment?"

"Yes," I said, and, leaning against the side of the port, looked out at
the beauty of the light.

"We are off Hatteras," he informed me, "but we have not