The pirates seemed to think it was a joke, and lots of them followed the captain's example and got married to the women there.

What they did with the priest afterward, whether they cut his throat or landed him in some place thousands of miles away, or entered him on board ship, is more nor I know.
"There's no doubt the captain's wife was fond of her husband; pirate as he was, he had not behaved so bad to her--but except when he was with her she was always sad.
"She had an awful horror of the life he led, and with this was a terror lest he should fall into the hands of a cruiser, for she knew that if he hadn't the good luck to be killed in the fight, he would be tried and hung at the nearest port.

It was a kind of mixed feeling, you see; she would have given everything to be free from the life she was leading, and yet even had she had the chance she would not have left her husband.
I believe he had promised her to give it up, but she must have knowed that he never would do it; besides, if he had slipped away from the ship at any place where they touched he could not have got her away, and her life would have paid for his desertion.
"But I don't think he would have gone if he could, for, quiet and nice as he was when at home, he was a demon at sea.

Ruffians and scoundrels as were his crew, the boldest of them were afraid of him.

It was not a word and a blow, but a word and a pistol shot with him; and if it hadn't been that he was a first rate seaman, that he fought his ships splendidly, and that there was no one who could have kept any show of order or discipline had he not been there, I don't believe they would have put up with him for a day.
"Well, lad, I sailed with them for three voyages.