any
time to-morrow."

"But, sir--" cried the merchant.

"Very good," said the pirate captain, "you talk it over. I'm going to
the town now and I'll row out to you this afternoon and get your
instructions."

And with this he got over the side.

Mr. Delaplaine said nothing of this visit, but waited on deck until the
captain came on board, and then many were the questions he asked about
the pirate Ichabod.

"Well, well!" the captain exclaimed, "that's just like him; he's a rare
one. Ichabod is not his name, of course, and I'm told he belongs to a
good English family--a younger son, and having taken his inheritance, he
invested it in a sloop and turned pirate. He has had some pretty good
fortune, I hear, in that line, but it hasn't profited him much, for he
is a terrible gambler, and all that he makes by his prizes he loses at
cards, so he is nearly always poor. Blackbeard sometimes helps him, so I
have heard--which he ought to do, for the old pirate has won bags of
money from him--but he is known as a good fellow, and to be trusted. I
have heard of his sailing a long way back to Belize to pay a gambling
debt he owed, he having captured a merchantman in the meantime."

"Very honourable, indeed," remarked Mr. Delaplaine.

"As pirates go, a white crow," said the other. "Now, sir, if you and
your ladies want to go to Blackbeard, and a rare desire is that, I
swear, you cannot do better than let Captain Ichabod take you. You will
be safe, I am sure of that, and there is every reason to think he will
find his man."

When Mr. Delaplaine went below with his extraordinary news, Dame Charter
turned pale and screamed.

"Sail in a pirate ship?" she cried. "I've seen the men belonging to one
of them, and as to going on board and sailing with them, I'd rather die
just where I am."

To the good Dame's astonishment and that of Mr. Delaplaine, Kate spoke
up very promptly. "But you cannot die here, Dame Charter; and if you
ever want to see your son again you have got to go to him. Which is also
the case with me and my father. And, as there is no other way for us to
go, I say, let us accept this man's offer if he be what my uncle thinks
he is. After all, it might be as safe for us on board his ship as to be
on a merchantman and be captured by pirates, which would be likely
enough in those regions where we are obliged to go; and so I say let us
see the man, and if he don't frighten us too much let us sail with him
and get my fat