“Starboard watch, Senor.”

“Will be on deck at once.”

“Ay, ay, Senor.”

I drew on a heavy pea jacket of leather, fastening it securely at the throat, and donned a wool cap.  The lantern in the cabin had been relighted, and was burning brightly, and my anxious glance about the interior revealed nothing out of place.  The only door open led to the steward’s storeroom.  Feeling it best to be prepared for any eventuality, I selected a pistol from the rack, saw to its loading, and slipped the weapon into my pocket.  Except for one man busily engaged coiling a rope, the main deck was deserted, and I climbed the short ladder to the poop, meeting LeVere as I straightened up.  The sea was a gentle swell, the sky clear above, but with a mass of dark clouds off the port quarter.  A glance aloft revealed a full spread of canvas.  The air contained a nip of frost.

“All set, I see, LeVere?”

“Si, Senor, and at that we barely move.  The bark needs a gale o’ wind to make any headway.”

“You have no fear of the storm yonder?”

He glanced aside at the mass of cloud.

“No, Senor.  It hung just there an hour past—­not come here, but creep around.”

“Your course?”

“Still to the sou’ o’ east, Senor.”  He bent down to glance at the card and I saw his dark face in the gleam of the binnacle light.  He was not bad looking, but for the continuous gleam of prominent teeth.  He straightened up.

“Who put out the cabin light, Senor?”

“I am sure I don’t know; was it out?”

“Yes, Senor.  I never knew that to happen before.”

“An accident, no doubt.  The steward probably left some near-by port open, and a gust of wind did the business.  That’s nothing to worry over.”

He shook his head as though far from satisfied by my theory, but went below without attempting to reply.  I watched him through the skylight, but he merely gulped down a glass of liquor, and entered his stateroom.

My watch was uneventful.  The fellow at the wheel was unfamiliar to me, and rather surly in his answers, to the few questions I put to him.  As he could speak nothing but Spanish I soon left him alone, and fell to pacing the deck, immersed in my own thoughts.  These were far from pleasant ones, as I reviewed again the strange situation in which I found myself.  Circumstances had played me a sorry trick.  Without plan, almost without effort, I had drifted into a position of utmost delicacy.  Any accident or mistake might lead to disastrous results.  Not only my own life, but the life of the young woman below, could be endangered by a single careless word, or act.  The whole affair seemed more a nightmare than a reality.  I was actually serving as first officer on a pirate ship in search of vessels to rob on the high seas, commanding a crew of West Indian cut-throats—­the very scum of hell, and under the order of a Portuguese