man for you! No law but his own! Willing to sack the
biggest and strongest cities on the Spanish Main and did it, too! Ah,
Peter, 'twould have been a fine thing to have lived in his day and to
have done what he did."

"I shouldn't care to be a pirate, no matter how powerful, and no matter
how great the reward."

"Again it's just a matter of temperament. I'm not trying to change you,
and you couldn't change me."

Came another calm, longer than the first. They hung about for days and
nights on a hot sea, and captain and crew alike showed anxiety and
impatience. The captain was continually watching the horizon with his
glasses, and he talked to Robert less than usual. It was obvious that he
felt anxiety.

The calm was broken just before nightfall. Dark had come with the
suddenness of the tropic seas. There was a puff of wind, followed by a
steady breeze, and the schooner once more sped southward. Robert,
anxious to breathe the invigorating air, came upon deck, and standing
near the mainmast watched the sea rushing by. The captain paused near
him and said to Robert in a satisfied tone:

"It won't be long now, Peter, until we're among the islands, and it may
be, too, that we'll see another ship before long. We've been on a lone
sea all the way down, but you'll find craft among the islands."

"It might be a hostile vessel, a privateer," said Robert.

"It's not privateers of which I'm thinking."

The light was dim, but Robert plainly saw the questing look in his eyes,
the look of a hunter, and he drew back a pace. This man was no mere
smuggler. He would not content himself with such a trade. But he said in
his best manner:

"I should think, captain, it was a time to avoid company, and that you
would be better pleased with a lone sea."

"One never knows what is coming in these waters," said the slaver. "It
may be that we shall have to run away, and I must not be caught off my
guard."

But the look in the man's eyes did not seem to Robert to be that of one
who wished to run away. It was far more the look of the hunter, and when
the hulking mate, Carlos, passed near him his face bore a kindred
expression. The sailors, too, were eager, attentive, watching the
horizon, as if they expected something to appear there.

No attention was paid to Robert, and he remained on the deck, feeling a
strong premonition that they were at the edge of a striking event, one
that had a great bearing upon his own fate, no matter what i