"Once the ship was built, our game was easy. She was armoured heavily amidships; she had two ten-inch guns in her turrets, and machine-guns thick all over her; and she was the best-fitted ship in her quarters swimming. It's a rum thing, but I always had a bit of a taste for nice things--fine painting, gold work, and stones--and my only hobby to speak of has been the buying of 'em. This led me to meet your friend Hall. Not that I didn't know him from the first, for my men saw him in the yards at Spezia, and from that day I never left him unwatched. I followed him to Paris, to Liverpool, to London, when I was ashore; but I never brought my ship within a hundred miles of any port: and I used to hire yachts and sink 'em in mid-ocean when I wanted to reach her. Your friend would be alive now if he hadn't sought to find out where I got to when I left port in the _La France_. But I took him aboard to end him, and they shot him off the Needles and lashed him to the shrouds of the yacht when we fired her. He was a brave man, and indirectly he brought me to this--him and you----"
"And the justice of God," I said, thinking hatred towards him again as I remembered Hall's death.
"Perhaps," he answered, "but you know my history; and what's done can't be undone. Yet I say again that, if my son was alive, and was taken from me as he was taken seven years ago in Panama, I'd do what I did, though they burnt me alive for it. I've been agen Europe, and I've licked 'em, by Heaven; for what they've took is only my ship, and agen that I've a million of their money to put. One man with his hand agen the world's a fine sight, and what I've claimed I've done. Is piracy not worth a cent? Is it played out, do you tell me? I reckon them as says it lies. Give me a ship like mine that can show 'em twenty-nine knots; give me the harbour to coal once in six months; and I'll live against the lot of them, fight 'em one by one, rule this ocean more sure than any man ruled a people. I say I'd do it; I should have said I could have done it, for it's over now, and the day's gone. Before another twenty-four hours you'll be alone in this dinghy, boy. I've death on me, and I wouldn't live without the ship; no, I'll go under as she went under--the Lord have mercy on me!"