before us. He had ordered the two men with him to leave open the hatch, and he held in his hand a sponge soaked with vinegar. “Which of you is — or rather was — Captain Ralph Percy?” he asked, in a grave but pleasant voice.

“I am Captain Percy,” I answered.

He looked at me with attention. “I have heard of you before,” he said. “I read the letter you wrote to Sir Edwyn Sandys, and thought it an excellently conceived and manly epistle. What magic transformed a gentleman and a soldier into a pirate?”

As he waited for me to speak, I gave him for answer, “Necessity.”

“A sad metamorphosis,” he said. “I had rather read of nymphs changed