e endearments compared to what
might, perchance, be his--the right of calling her his own when he was
far away and upon the distant sea? And, besides, he felt like a coward
who had shirked his duty.

But he was very much in love. The next morning appeared in a drizzle
of rain that followed the beautiful warmth of the day before. He had
the coach all to himself, and in the damp and leathery solitude he
drew out the little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and
looked long and fixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent
face, the blue eyes, the red, smiling lips depicted upon the
satinlike, ivory surface.

II

For the better part of five months Mainwaring cruised about in the
waters surrounding the Bahama Islands. In that time he ran to earth
and dispersed a dozen nests of pirates. He destroyed no less than
fifteen piratical crafts of all sizes, from a large half-decked
whaleboat to a three-hundred-ton barkentine. The name of the _Yankee_
became a terror to every sea wolf in the western tropics, and the
waters of the Bahama Islands became swept almost clean of the bloody
wretches who had so lately infested it.

But the one freebooter of all others whom he sought--Capt. Jack
Scarfield--seemed to evade him like a shadow, to slip through his
fingers like magic. Twice he came almost within touch of the famous
marauder, both times in the ominous wrecks that the pirate captain had
left behind him. The first of these was the water-logged remains of a
burned and still smoking wreck that he found adrift in the great
Bahama channel. It was the _Water Witch_, of Salem, but he did not
learn her tragic story until, two weeks later, he discovered a part of
her crew at Port Maria, on the north coast of Jamaica. It was, indeed,
a dreadful story to which he listened. The castaways said that they of
all the vessel's crew had been spared so that they might tell the
commander of the _Yankee_, should they meet him, that he might keep
what he found, with Captain Scarfield's compliments, who served it up
to him hot cooked.

Three weeks later he rescued what remained of the crew of the
shattered, bloody hulk of the _Baltimore Belle_, eight of whose crew,
headed by the captain, had been tied hand and foot and heaved
overboard. Again, there was a message from Captain Scarfield to the
commander of the _Yankee_ that he might season what he found to suit
his own taste.

Mainwaring was of a sanguine disposition, with fiery te