The sailor told this story, shrugged his shoulders, looked knowing and mysterious, and left his auditors to draw what inference they pleased.

As they had been talking of Captain Allen, the listeners made their own conclusion as to his identity with the buccaneer.

True to human nature, in its inclination to believe always the worst of a man, nine out of ten credited the story as applied to the cut-throat looking captain, and so, after this, it was no unusual thing to hear him designated by the not very flattering sobriquet of the "old pirate." Later events, still more inexplicable in their character, and yet unexplained, gave color to this story, and invested it with the elements of probability.

As related, the old gossip's second intrusion upon the Aliens, in the capacity of nurse, furnished the town's-people with a few additional facts, as to the state of things inside of a dwelling, upon whose very walls seemed written mystery.

In the beginning, Mrs.Allen had made a few acquaintances, who were charmed with her character, as far as she let herself be known.