ivision of their booty, it was presently
discovered that the Rajah's ruby had mysteriously disappeared from the
collection of jewels to be divided. The other pirates immediately
suspected their captain of having secretly purloined it, and, indeed,
so certain were they of his turpitude that they immediately set about
taking means to force a confession from him.

In this, however, they were so far unsuccessful that the captain,
refusing to yield to their importunities, had suffered himself to die
under their hands, and had so carried the secret of the hiding place
of the great ruby--if he possessed such a secret--along with him.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN KEITT]

Duckworthy concluded his confession by declaring that in his opinion
he himself, the Portuguese sailing master, the captain of _The Bloody
Hand_, and Hunt were the only ones of Captain Keitt's crew who were
now alive; for that _The Good Fortune_ must have broken up in a storm,
which immediately followed their desertion of her; in which event the
entire crew must inevitably have perished.

It may be added that Duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that,
if his surmise was true, there were now only three left alive of all
that wicked crew that had successfully carried to its completion the
greatest adventure which any pirate in the world had ever, perhaps,
embarked upon.

I

_Jonathan Rugg_

You may never know what romantic aspirations may lie hidden beneath
the most sedate and sober demeanor.

To have observed Jonathan Rugg, who was a tall, lean, loose-jointed
young Quaker of a somewhat forbidding aspect, with straight, dark hair
and a bony, overhanging forehead set into a frown, a pair of small,
deep-set eyes, and a square jaw, no one would for a moment have
suspected that he concealed beneath so serious an exterior any
appetite for romantic adventure.

Nevertheless, finding himself suddenly transported, as it were, from
the quiet of so sober a town as that of Philadelphia to the tropical
enchantment of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, the night brilliant
with a full moon that swung in an opal sky, the warm and luminous
darkness replete with the mysteries of a tropical night, and burdened
with the odors of a land breeze, he suddenly discovered himself to be
overtaken with so vehement a desire for some unwonted excitement that,
had the opportunity presented itself, he felt himself ready to
embrace any adventure with the utmost eagerness, no matte