that he murdered his mate. He said his mate mutinied, and that he
was justified in killing him. There were a lot of others who went
out to catch pirates, but ended by turning pirates themselves.
Then there were some who just carried on pirating as a kind of
branch business, when other things were dull. What respect can you
have for that kind of a pirate? Some of 'em were wreckers part of
the time, and pirates the other part."

"What are wreckers?" I asked.

"Why, they," explained Mr. Daddles, "made a living by what they
could steal from wrecks. Either they stayed on dangerous shores
and waited for a wreck, or they would deceive sailors by building
false beacons at night so as to toll the ships upon the rocks.
That was a pretty mean sort of thing! They couldn't pick out a
rich galleon, all full of gold ingots, and then fight for the
treasure, like pirates and gentlemen! No; they had to take
whatever came along, and, like as not, all they would get would be
a miserable fishing-shack, loaded with hake and halibut! A real,
simon-pure pirate would have refused to shake hands with a low-
down wrecker, and it would have served him right, too.

"But Black Pedro was the very top-notcher of them all, the finest
flower of piracy. He didn't go pirating just during the summer
months, when his other business was slack. And he would have died
before he'd have been a wrecker. It was a profession, with him.
And an inherited one, too. He was the third of the name. He
started in as cabin boy on the ship of his grand-father,--old
Black Pedro the First. The old man, the grand-father, was captured
once by an Admiral of the English Navy, and taken to Tyburn to be