ne, the whole of ye, and sail the whole of ye wheresoever I list
to go!"

Seeing that the _Sea Wraith_ obeyed him still, her crew believed yet
more devoutly that a secret voice spoke in his ear and a dark hand gave
him aid. It was later, when he began to feed them gold, that they who
owned caps threw them up for him, and they whose brains had only
nature's thatching shouted for him as for a demigod. A Spanish squadron
bound for The Havannah was met by a hurricane, several of its ships
lost, and the remainder widely separated. The hurricane past, forth from
an island harbor stole the _Sea Wraith_ that so many storms had
beleaguered. Gray as with eld, lonely as the ark, a haggard ship manned
by outcasts, she spread her vampire wings and flitted from her
enshadowed anchorage. An hour later, like a vampire still, she hooked
herself to a gay galleon and sucked from it life that was cheap and gold
that was dear; then descrying other sails, she left that ruined hulk for
a long and fierce struggle with a Portuguese carrack. The battle waxed
so fell that the carrack also might have been worked by men who had all
to win and naught to lose, and captained by one who bared his brow to
the thunder-stone.

Like harpies they fought, but when night came there was only the _Sea
Wraith_ scudding to the south, and that pied crew of hers knocking at
the stars with the knowledge that ever and always their judgment (even
though he asked it not) jumped with the Captain's, and that before them
lay the gilded cities and the chances of Pizarro. It was of his subtlety
that the Captain never used to them fair promises, spake not once a
sennight of gold, never bragged to them of what must be. Oh! a subtle
captain, whose very strangeness was his best lieutenant upon that
eldritch, nine-lived ship, through days and days of monstrous luck.
"Baldry's luck," quoth the mariner who had sailed with the _Star_, then
held his breath and looked askance at his present Captain, who, however,
could never have heard him up there on the poop-deck! Natheless that
night the man was ordered forward, and finding Sir Mortimer Ferne
sitting alone, save for the boy, in the great cabin, was bidden to talk
of Robert Baldry. "Speak freely, Carpenter,--freely! Why, thou art one
of his friends, and I another, and we go, somewhat at our peril, to
hale him from perdition! Why, thou thyself saw him beckoning to us to
hasten and do our friendly part! So praise thy old Captain to