"Your men have wandered into my cabin," he exclaimed, "and they have frightened my passengers. Shall I go and bring them up, Major Bonnet?
They will be better here."
"Ay, ay!" cried the pirate captain, surprised that there should be female passengers on board, and Marchand, followed by Ben Greenway, disappeared below.
"Confound women passengers," said Bonnet to himself; "that is truly a bit of bad luck."
In a few minutes Marchand was back, bringing with him a middle-aged and somewhat pudgy woman, very pale; a younger woman of exceeding plainness, and sobbing steadfastly; and also an elderly man, evidently an invalid, and wearing a long dressing-gown.
"These," said Captain Marchand, "are Master and Madam Ballinger and daughter, of York in England, who have been sojourning in Jamaica for the health of the gentleman, but are now sailing with me to Barbadoes, hoping the air of our good island may be more salubrious for the lungs."
Captain Bonnet had never been in the habit of speaking loudly before ladies, but he now felt that he must stand by his character.
"You cannot have heard," he almost shouted, "that I am the pirate Bonnet, and that your vessel is now my prize."
At this the two ladies began to scream vigorously, and the form of the gentleman trembled to such a degree that his cane beat a tattoo upon the deck.
"Yes," continued Bonnet, "when my men have stripped this ship of its valuables I shall burn her to the water's edge, and, having removed you to my vessel, I shall shortly make you walk the plank."
Here the younger lady began to stiffen herself out as if she were about to faint in the arms of Captain Marchand, who had suddenly seized her; but her great curiosity to hear more kept her still conscious. Mrs.
Ballinger grew very red in the face.
"That cannot be," she cried; "you may do what you please with our belongings and with Captain Marchand's ship, but my husband is too sick a man to walk a plank. You have not noticed, perchance, that his legs are so feeble that he could scarce mount from the cabin to the deck. It would be impossible for him to walk a plank; and as for my daughter and myself, we know nothing about such a thing, and could not, out of sheer ignorance."
For a moment a shadow of perplexity fell upon Captain Bonnet's face. He could readily perceive that the infirm Mr. Ballinger could not walk a plank, or even mount one, unless some one went with him to assist him, and as to his wife, she was evidently a termagant; and, having sailed his ship and floated his Jolly Roger in order to get rid of one termagant, he was greatly annoyed at being brought thus, face to face, with another. He stood for a moment silent. The old gentleman looked as if he would like to go down to his cabin and cover up his head with his blanket until all this commotion should be over; the daughter sobbed as she gazed about her, taking in every point of this most novel situation; and the mother, with dilated nostrils, still glared.