For a day and a night they had chased him, when off Cape St. Vincent
at about six a.m. Shard took that step that decided his retirement
from active life, he turned for the Mediterranean. Had he held on
Southwards down the African coast it is doubtful whether in face of
the interference of England, Russia, France, Denmark and Spain, he
could have made piracy pay; but in turning for the Mediterranean he
took what we may call the penultimate step of his life which meant for
him settling down. There were three great courses of action invented
by Shard in his youth, upon which he pondered by day and brooded by
night, consolations in all his dangers, secret even from his men,
three means of escape as he hoped from any peril that might meet him
on the sea. One of these was the floating island that the Book of
Wonder tells of, another was so fantastic that we may doubt if even
the brilliant audacity of Shard could ever have found it practicable,
at least he never tried it so far as is known in that tavern by the
sea in which I glean my news, and the third he determined on carrying
out as he turned that morning for the Mediterranean. True he might yet
have practised piracy in spite of the step that he took, a little
later when the seas grew quiet, but that penultimate step was like
that small house in the country that the business man has his eye on,
like some snug investment put away for old age, there are certain
final courses in men's lives which after taking they never go back to
business.

He turned then for the Mediterranean with the English fleet behind
him, and his men wondered.

What madness was this,--muttered Bill the Boatswain in Old Frank's
only ear, with the French fleet waiting in the Gulf of Lyons and the
Spaniards all the way between Sardinia and Tunis: for they knew the