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by Howard Pyle Hitherto the Tortugans had been content to gain as much as possible from the homeward-bound vessels through the orderly channels of legitimate trade. It was reserved for Pierre le Grand to introduce piracy as a quicker and more easy road to wealth than the semihonest exchange they had been used to practice.

About midday, Captain Lund drove down on the ice to draw up the boat owned by his sons; after which he was to return a second time for the decoys and shooting-box of the homeward-bound sportsmen. The floe was fast wasting under the April sun, and his horses' iron-shod hoofs sank deep into the snow-ice, which the night-frosts had left at morn as hard as flint.

As we looked at that fearful Wolf Rock, we thought of the number of vessels, out of their reckoning, homeward-bound, or coming round from the North Sea, intending to proceed up the Irish Channel, which must have run against it in days gone by. But now the red and white "flashes" which follow each other at half-minute intervals all through the night, enable mariners to steer clear of the danger.

I wanted the skipper to put into some port, but he replied that, `Out of his course he would not go for me or any man. I then begged him, chiefly by signs, that should we fall in with a homeward-bound ship, to put me on board of her.

Their idea was first to make the round of the various shipping agents' offices, and endeavour to obtain a berth on a homeward-bound ship.

It was a most difficult question to answer; but, after considering the matter in all its bearings, I came to the conclusion that his most likely haunt would probably be near one of the great entrances from the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, where he would be conveniently posted to intercept and plunder both outward and homeward-bound ships; although he would probably take care not to establish himself too near, lest he should run foul of any of our cruisers stationed in the same locality for the protection of British bottoms trading to and from West Indian ports.

Now vessels on the return voyage to Europe from the West Indies needed revictualing, and food, especially flesh, was at a premium in the islands of the Spanish Main; wherefore a great profit was to be turned in preserving beef and pork, and selling the flesh to homeward-bound vessels.

The women, neatly and cleanly clad, sat in long rows and offered their provisions for sale by the light of hundreds of torches; and, when the business was over, the slopes of the mountains were studded all over with flickering little points of brightness proceeding from the torches carried by the homeward-bound market women.

The ship, it appeared, was named the Manilla, and was homeward-bound with a rich cargo of spices and other rare commodities, including several tons of ivory which she had shipped at the Cape, together with a number of passengers. She had here joined the homeward-bound convoy, and all had gone well with her until the springing up of the gale during which we had fallen in with the convoy.

Helena, where I shall leave this letter to go by the mail steamer, that you may know a few weeks before I arrive how comfortably my voyage has begun. We see no Cape pigeons; they only visit outward ships is not that strange? but, en revanche, many more albatrosses than in coming; and we also enjoy the advantage of seeing all the homeward-bound ships, as they all PASS us a humiliating fact.