your brain, an' mine will be comforted."

"Heigho!" cried Blackbeard. "Truly you are a better chaplain than I
thought you. Drain half this mug and then, by all the powers of heaven
and hell, you shall convert me. Now, look ye," said the pirate, when the
mug was empty, "and hear what a brave repentance I have already begun. I
am tired, my gay gardener, of all these piracies; I have had enough of
them. Even now, my spoils and prizes are greater than I can manage, and
why should I strive to make them more? I told you of my young
lieutenant, who ran away and who gave his carcass to the birds of prey
rather than sail with me and marry my strapping daughter. I liked that
fellow, Greenway, and if he had known what was well for him there might
be some reason for me to keep on piling up goods and money, but there's
cursed little reason for it now. I have merchandise of value at Belize
and much more of it in these ships, besides money from Charles Town
which ought to last an honest gentleman for the rest of his days."

"Ay," said Ben, "but an honest gentleman is sparing of his
expenditures."

"And you think I am not that kind of a man, do you?" shouted the
pirate. "But let me tell you this. I am sailing now for Topsail Inlet,
on the North Carolina coast, and I am going to run in there, disperse
this fleet, sell my goods, and--"

"Be hanged?" interpolated Greenway in surprise.

"Not a bit of it, you croaking crow!" roared the pirate. "Not a bit of
it. Don't you know, you dull-head, that our good King George has issued
a proclamation to the Brethren of the Coast to come in and behave
themselves like honest citizens and receive their pardon? I have done
that once, and so I know all about it; but I backslid, showing that my
conversion was badly done."

"It must hae been a poor hand that did the job for ye," said Greenway,
"for truly the conversion washed off in the first rain."

The pirate laughed a great laugh. "The fact is," he said, "I did the
work myself, and knowing nothing about it made a bad botch of it, but
this time it will be different. I am going to give the matter into your
hands, and I shall expect you to do it well. If I become not an honest
gentleman this time you shall pay for it, first with your ears and then
with your head."

"An' ye're goin' to keep me by ye?" said Greenway, with an expression
not of the best.

"Truly so," said Blackbeard. "I shall make you my clerk as long as I am
a pirate, for I have m