“Believe your ears!” exclaimed Colonel Belford.  “To be sure you cannot believe your ears.  Do you not see that this is a preposterous lie, and that he is telling it to you to tease and to mortify me?”

At this Captain Obadiah favored his brother with a look of exaggerated and sanctimonious humility.  “Alas, brother,” he cried out, “for accusing me so unjustly!  Fie upon you!  Would you check a penitent in his confession?  But you must know that it is to this gentleman that I address myself, and not to you.”  Then directing his discourse once more to the Reverend Mr. Pettibones, he resumed his address thus:  “Sir, you must know that while I was in the West Indies I embarked, among other things, in one of those ventures against the Spanish Main of which you may have heard.”

“Do you mean piracy?” asked the Reverend Pettibones; and Captain Obadiah nodded his head.

“’Tis a lie!” cried Colonel Belford, smacking his hand upon the table.  “He never possessed spirit enough for anything so dangerous as piracy or more mischievous than slave-trading.”

“Sir,” quoth Captain Obadiah to the reverend gentleman, “again I say ’tis to you I address my confession.  Well, sir, one day we sighted a Spanish caravel very rich ladened with a prodigious quantity of plate, but were without so much as a capful of wind to fetch us up with her.  ‘I would,’ says I, ’offer the Devil my soul for a bit of a breeze to bring us alongside.’  ‘Done,’ says a voice beside me, and—­alas that I must confess it!—­there I saw a man with a very dark countenance, whom I had never before beheld aboard of our ship.  ‘Sign this,’ says he, ‘and the breeze is yours!’ ‘What is it upon the pen?’ says I. “’Tis blood,’ says he.  Alas, sir! what was a poor wretch so tempted as I to do?”

“And did you sign?” asked Mr. Pettibones, all agog to hear the conclusion of so strange a narration.

“Woe is me, sir, that I should have done so!” quoth Captain Obadiah, rolling his eyes until little but the whites of them were to be seen.

“And did you catch the Spanish ship?”

“That we did, sir, and stripped her as clean as a whistle.”

“’Tis all a prodigious lie!” cried Colonel Belford, in a fury.  “Sir, can you sit so complacently and be made a fool of by so extravagant a fable?”

“Indeed it is unbelievable,” said Mr. Pettibones.

At this faint reply, Captain Obadiah burst out laughing; then renewing his narrative—­“Indeed, sir,” he declared, “you may believe me or not, as you please.  Nevertheless, I may tell you that, having so obtained my prize, and having time to think coolly over the bargain I had made, I says to myself, says I:  ’Obediah Belford!  Obadiah Belford, here is a pretty pickle you are in.  ’Tis time you quit these parts and lived decent, or else you are damned to all eternity.’  And so I came hither to New Hope, reverend sir, hoping to end my days in quiet.  Alas, sir! would you