er one of them, should go
back to Barbadoes to live with the impossible Madam Bonnet.

If her father's vessel were in the harbour and he were here with them,
or even if she had had good tidings from him, Kate Bonnet would have
been a very happy girl, for her present abode was vastly different from
any home she had ever known. Her uncle's house on the highlands beyond
the town lay in a region of cooler breezes and more bracing air than
that of Barbadoes. Books and music and the general air of refinement
recalled her early life with her mother, and with the exception of the
anxiety about her father, there were no clouds in the bright blue skies
of Kate Bonnet. But this anxiety was a cloud, and it was spreading.

* * * * *

When the Amanda moved away from the side of the pirate vessel Revenge
she hoisted all sail, and got away over the sea as fast as the
prevailing wind could take her. When she passed the bar below Bridgetown
and came to anchor, Captain Marchand immediately lowered a boat and was
rowed up the river to the recent residence of Major Stede Bonnet, and
there he delivered two letters--one to the wife of that gentleman, and
the other for his daughter. Then the captain rowed back and went into
the town, where he annoyed and nearly distracted the citizens by giving
them the most cautious and expurgated account of the considerate and
friendly manner in which the Amanda had been relieved of her cargo by
his old friend and fellow-vestryman, Major Bonnet.

Captain Marchand had been greatly impressed by the many things which Ben
Greenway had said about his master's present most astounding freak, and
hoping in his heart that repentance and a suitable reparation might soon
give this hitherto estimable man an opportunity to return to his former
place in society, he said as little as he could against the name and
fame of this once respected fellow-citizen. When he communicated with
the English owners of his now departed cargo, he would know what to say
to them, but here, safe in harbour with his vessel and his passengers,
he preferred to wait for a time before entirely blackening the character
of the man who had allowed him to come here. Like the faithful Ben
Greenway, he did not yet believe in Stede Bonnet's piracy.

Madam Bonnet read her letter and did not like it. In fact, she thought
it shameful. Then she opened and read the letter to her step-daughter.
This she did not like either, a