You say my niece knows not what fortune she trifles with; I think she does.

And when she told you she would not accept the offer of your dishonour, I commend her every word." Captain Vince frowned black as night, and clapped his hand to his sword-hilt; but the pale merchant made no movement of defence, and the captain, striking his clinched fist against the table, dashed from the room.

Before he reached his ship he had sworn a solemn oath: he vowed that he would follow that pirate ship; he would kill, burn, destroy, annihilate, but out of the storm and the fire he would pick unharmed the father of the girl who had entranced him and had spurned him.

He laughed savagely as he thought of it.

With that dolt of a father in his hands, a man wearing always around his neck the hangman's noose, he would hold the card which would give him the game.