Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/232

cost the lives of certain of His Majesty’s seamen and had occasioned His Majesty much grief and concern.

He who read the indictment spoke in a loud and solemn voice, such as might of itself make a man think of his sins and fear judgment; but they were already cowed and fearful, save only the Old One, who still held his head high and very scornfully smiled. The cook bent his head and shivered and dared not look the jury in the face. The carpenter wept and Martin Barwick was like a man struck dumb and Paul Craig kept working his mouth and biting at his lips.

There was a great concourse of people, for who would not seize upon the chance to see a band of pirates? But a very poor show the pirates made, save the Old One; for though they had talked much and often of their valour and had represented themselves as tall fellows who feared nothing in life or death, they were now and for all time revealed as cowards to the marrow of their bones.

Quietly and expeditiously the officers of the Court swore their first witness, who smelled of pitch and tar and bore himself in such wise that he was to be known for a sailor wherever he might turn.

To their questions he replied with easy assurance, for he was not one of those fellows who cope with great gales and storms at sea only to be cowed by a great person on land. "Yea, sir," quoth he, ‘‘there is among mariners common talk of a band of seasharks that hath long resorted to His Majesty’s port of Bideford. Yea, my lord. — And have I met with them? That I have, and to my sorrow. This month two years I was master in a likely snow, the Prosperous of three hundred tons, which fell afoul of that very company, as their boasting