The Voyage of the Hoppergrass by Edmund Lester Pearson
page 46 of 212 (21%)
page 46 of 212 (21%)
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boat, shoved off, and started to row for the ship. There was no
other boat, and Pedro could only watch him. The old man rowed to 'The Angel of Death,' climbed aboard, and commenced, with the help of the boy, who had been left there, to get up the foresail. Then they hoisted the anchor, and the 'Angel' moved slowly out of the harbor. Black Pedro sat down on the beach, and watched it fade from sight. When night fell 'The Angel of Death' was only a speck on the horizon. Then the pirate chief returned to his cottage. "On the following day a dreadful storm arose. Black Pedro knew that no ship, manned only by an aged bo's'n and a cabin-boy, could live through such a tempest. A few days later his worst fears were realized, for by the wreckage that was washed ashore, he knew that 'The Angel of Death' had gone to pieces in the storm. When The Plank itself, worn smooth on its upper side by the hundreds of feet that had passed over it, was tossed upon the shores of Rum Island, the pirate sat down on the sand and sobbed aloud. He knew that old Halyard and the cabin-boy must have perished, and the noblest crew of buccaneers on whom the sun had ever shone, were forever disbanded, and that he, their chief, was now the last of the pirates, alone and deserted on an undiscovered and unknown island. "And there he lives to this day." CHAPTER IV |
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