when first he stepped out upon the deck as his vessel lay
comfortably anchored in a little cove in the Cape Fear River, that he
did not remember ever having been in a more pleasant harbour. This
well-tried pirate captain--Stede Bonnet, as we shall call him,
notwithstanding his assumption of another name--was in a genial mood as
he drank in the morning air.

From his point of view he had a right to be genial; he had a right to be
pleased with the scenery and the air; he had a right to swear at the
Scotchman, and to ask him why he did not put on a merrier visage on such
a sparkling morning, for since he had first started out as Captain
Thomas of the Royal James he had been a most successful pirate. He had
sailed up the Virginia coast; he had burned, he had sunk, he had robbed,
he had slain; he had gone up the Delaware Bay, and the people in ships
and the people on the coasts trembled even when they heard that his
black flag had been sighted.

No man could now say that the former captain of the Revenge was not an
accomplished and seasoned desperado. Even the great Blackbeard would not
have cared to give him nicknames, nor dared to play his blithesome
tricks upon him; he was now no more Captain Nightcap to any man. His
crew of hairy ruffians had learned to understand that he knew what he
wanted, and, more than that, he knew how to order it done. They listened
to his great oaths and they respected him. This powerful pirate now
commanded a small fleet, for in the cove where lay his flag-ship also
lay two good-sized sloops, manned by their own crews, which he had
captured in Delaware Bay and had brought down with him to this quiet
spot, a few miles up the Cape Fear River, where now he was repairing his
own ship, which had had a hard time of it since she had again come into
his hands.

For many a long day the sound of the hammer and the saw had mingled with
the song of the birds, and Captain Bonnet felt that in a day or two he
might again sail out upon the sea, conveying his two prizes to some
convenient mart, while he, with his good ship, freshened and restored,
would go in search of more victories, more booty, and more blood.

"Greenway, I tell you," said Bonnet, continuing his remarks, "you are
too glum; you've got the only long face in all this, my fleet. Even
those poor fellows who man my prizes are not so solemn, although they
know not, when I have done with them, whether I shall maroon them to
quietly starve or shall