Dame Charter and Kate screamed in their fright, and Mr. Delaplaine turned pale.  “Visit pirate ships!” he cried.  “Rather I would have supposed that you would keep away from them as far as you could.  For myself, I would have them a hundred miles distant if it were possible.”

Bonnet laughed loftily.  “It will be visits of ceremony that we shall pay, and with all due ceremony shall we be received.  Pull out to that vessel!” he said to the oarsmen.  Then, turning to the others, he remarked:  “That sloop is the Dripping Blade, commanded by Captain Sorby, whose name strikes terror throughout the Spanish Main.  Ay! and in other parts of the ocean, I can assure you, for he has sailed northward nearly as far as I have, but he has not yet rivalled me.  I know him, having done business with him on shore.  He is a most portentous person, as you will soon see.”

“Oh, father!” cried Kate, “don’t take us there; it will kill us just to look upon such dreadful pirates.  I pray you turn the boat!”

“Oh! if Dickory were here,” gasped Dame Charter, “he would turn the boat himself; he would never allow me to be taken among those awful wretches.”

Mr. Delaplaine said nothing.  It was too late to expostulate, but he trembled as he sat.

“I cannot turn back, my dear,” said Bonnet, “even if I would, for the great Sorby is now on deck, and looking at us as we approach.”

As the boat drew up by the side of the Dripping Blade the renowned Sorby looked down over the side.  He was a red-headed man; his long hair and beard dyed yellow in some places by the sun.  He was grievous to look upon, and like to create in the mind of an imaginative person the image of a sun-burned devil on a holiday.

“Good-day to you!  Good-day, Sir Bonnet,” cried the pirate captain; “come on board, come on board, all of you, wife, daughter, father, if such they be!  We’ll let down ladders and I shall feast you finely.”

“Nay, nay, good Captain Sorby,” replied Bonnet, with courteous dignity, “my family and I have just stopped to pay you our respects.  They have all heard of your great prowess, for I have told them.  They may never have a chance again to look upon another of your fame.”

“Heaven grant it!” said Dame Charter in her heart.  “If I get out of this, I stay upon dry land forever.”

“I grieve that my poor ship be not honoured by your ladies,” said Sorby, “but I admit that her decks are scarcely fit for the reception of such company.  It is but to-day that we have found time to cleanse her deck from the stain and disorder of our last fight, having lately come into harbour.  That was a great fight, Sir Bonnet; we lay low and let the fellows board us, but not one of them went back again.  Ha! ha!  Not one of them went back again, good ladies.”

Every pirate face on board that ill-conditioned sloop now glared over her rail, their eyes fixed upon the goodly company in the little boat, their horrid hair and beards stained and matted—­it would have been hard to tell by what.