e in with
Lieutenant Lanham, the water running from his clothes. Yet the stranger
had a dignity fully equal to his own, and there was also something very
uncommon about him, a look of strength and confidence extraordinary in
one so young.

"Won't you sit down?" said Captain Whyte.

Robert glanced at his clothes.

"I bring the storm with me," he said--he often spoke in the language
that he had unconsciously imbibed in much reading of the Elizabethans.

"Never mind that. Water won't hurt my cabin, and if it did you're
welcome just the same. I suppose you represent the people of the island,
to whom my crew and I owe so much."

"I am the people of the island."

"You mean that you're here alone?"

"Exactly that. But tell me, before we go any further, Captain, what
month this is."

"May."

"And the year?"

"1759."

"I wanted to be sure. I see that I've been on the island eight or nine
months, but I lost all count of time, and, now and then it seemed like
eight or nine years. As I've already told Lieutenant Lanham, I'm Robert
Lennox, of Albany, the Province of New York, and the wilderness. I was
kidnapped at Albany and carried down the Hudson and out to sea by a
slaver and pirate."

"'Tis an extraordinary tale, Mr. Lennox."

"But a true one, Captain Whyte."

"I meant no insinuation that it wasn't. Extraordinary things happen in
the world, and have been happening in these seas, ever since Columbus
first came into them."

"Still mine is such an unusual story that it needs proof, and I give it.
Did you not last autumn pretend that yours was a merchant ship, have a
sailor play the violin on deck while others danced about, and lure under
your guns a pirate with the black flag at her masthead?"

Captain Whyte stared in astonishment.

"How do you know that?" he exclaimed.

"Did you not shatter the pirate ship with your broadsides but lose her
afterwards in a great storm that came up suddenly?"

"Aye, so I did, and I've been looking for her many a time since then."

"You'll never find her, Captain. Your guns were aimed well enough, and
they took the life out of her. She couldn't weather the storm. Of all
the people who were aboard her then I'm the only survivor. Her captain
escaped with me to this island, but he died of wounds and I buried him.
I can show you his grave."

"How do I know that you, too, are not one of the pirates?"

"By taking me back on your ship to the colonies, and proving my tale. If
y