"
"If your respect aboard shall bear any proportion to your hardihood on
shore, you may be accounted a model of civility! But a mariner of your
pretension should have some regard to the character of the vessel in which
he takes service."
"That of which your Honor spoke, is then a buccaneer?"
"If not a buccaneer, one but little better. A lawless trader, under the
most favorable view; and there are those who think that he, who has gone
so far, has not stopt short of the end. But the reputation of the 'Skimmer
of the Seas' must be known to one who has navigated the ocean, long as
you."
"You will overlook the curiosity of a seafaring man, in a matter of his
profession," returned the mariner of the sash, with strong and evident
interest in his manner. "I am lately from a distant ocean, and though many
tales of the buccaneers of the islands have been narrated, I do not
remember to have heard of that rover, before his name came into the
discourse between me and the schipper of the boat, that plies between this
landing and the city. I am not, altogether, what I seem, Captain Ludlow;
and when further acquaintance and hard service shall have brought me more
before the eyes of my commander, he may not repent having induced a
thorough seaman to enter his ship, by a little condescension and
good-nature shown while the man was still his own master. Your Honor will
take no offence at my boldness, when I tell you, I should be glad to know
more of this unlawful trader.
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