The yarn is a long one, and I can't tell it you now, because just at present, you see, I have got to go below to look after the dinners of the company, but the first time as we can get an opportunity for a quiet talk I will tell it you.

But don't you go away and think till then as I was a pirate from choice.

I shouldn't like you to think that of me; there ain't never no saying at sea what may happen.

I might tumble overboard tonight and get drowned, or one of the convoy might run foul of us and sink us, and tomorrow you might be alive and I might be dead, and I shouldn't like you to go on thinking all your life as that Sergeant Edwards had been a bloody pirate of his own free will.

So you just bear in mind, till I tells you the whole story, as how it was forced upon me.