ILLUSTRATIONS

“‘I’ve kept my ears open to all your doings’”

“This figure of war our hero asked to step aside with him”

“Our hero, leaping to the wheel, seized the flying spokes”

“She and master Harry would spend hours together”

“‘...  And twenty-one and twenty-two’”

“‘’Tis enough,’ cried out parson Jones, ‘to make us both rich men’”

“Captain Malyoe shot captain brand through the head”

“He would shout opprobrious words after the other in the streets”

STOLEN TREASURE

I. WITH THE BUCCANEERS

Being an Account of Certain Adventures that Befell Henry Mostyn under Captain H. Morgan in the Year 1665-66.

I

Although this narration has more particularly to do with the taking of the Spanish Vice-Admiral in the harbor of Puerto Bello, and of the rescue therefrom of Le Sieur Simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by Captain Morgan, the famous buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless, premise something of the earlier history of Master Harry Mostyn, whom you may, if you please, consider as the hero of the several circumstances recounted in these pages.

In the year 1664 our hero’s father embarked from Portsmouth, in England, for the Barbadoes, where he owned a considerable sugar plantation.  Thither to those parts of America he transported with himself his whole family, of whom our Master Harry was the fifth of eight children—­a great lusty fellow as little fitted for the Church (for which he was designed) as could be.  At the time of this story, though not above sixteen years old, Master Harry Mostyn was as big and well-grown as many a man of twenty, and of such a reckless and dare-devil spirit that no adventure was too dangerous or too mischievous for him to embark upon.

At this time there was a deal of talk in those parts of the Americas concerning Captain Morgan, and the prodigious successes he was having pirating against the Spaniards.

This man had once been an indentured servant with Mr. Rolls, a sugar factor at the Barbadoes.  Having served out his time, and being of lawless disposition, possessing also a prodigious appetite for adventure, he joined with others of his kidney, and, purchasing a caraval of three guns, embarked fairly upon that career of piracy the most successful that ever was heard of in the world.