e bonds of morality and decorum? Were
those bonds burst asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild
beast rush forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear?
Such were the questions that Mainwaring asked himself. And how had it
all come about? By what easy gradations had the respectable Quaker
skipper descended from the decorum of his home life, step by step,
into such a gulf of iniquity? Many such thoughts passed through
Mainwaring's mind, and he pondered them through the still reaches of
the tropical nights while he sat watching the pirate captain struggle
out of the world he had so long burdened. At last the poor wretch
died, and the earth was well quit of one of its torments.

[Illustration: "He Struck Once and Again at the Bald, Narrow Forehead
Beneath Him"

_Illustration from_
CAPTAIN SCARFIELD

_by_ Howard Pyle

_Originally published in_
THE NORTHWESTERN MILLER, _December_ 18, 1897]

A systematic search was made through the island for the scattered
crew, but none was captured. Either there were some secret hiding
places upon the island (which was not very likely) or else they had
escaped in boats hidden somewhere among the tropical foliage. At any
rate they were gone.

Nor, search as he would, could Mainwaring find a trace of any of the
pirate treasure. After the pirate's death and under close questioning,
the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to confess in broken
English that Captain Scarfield had taken a quantity of silver money
aboard his vessel, but either she was mistaken or else the pirates had
taken it thence again and had hidden it somewhere else.

Nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most fortuitous
accident.

Mainwaring had given orders that the _Eliza Cooper_ was to be burned,
and a party was detailed to carry the order into execution. At this
the cook of the _Yankee_ came petitioning for some of the Wilmington
and Brandywine flour to make some plum duff upon the morrow, and
Mainwaring granted his request in so far that he ordered one of the
men to knock open one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook's
demands.

The crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with the
destruction of the pirate vessel had not been gone a quarter of an
hour when word came back that the hidden treasure had been found.

Mainwaring hurried aboard the _Eliza Cooper_, and there in the midst
of the open flour barrel he beheld a great quantity o