Commodore Junk — page 158: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GIBBET SPIT. 151 boat not far from land, and the ship would be plundered, and then scuttled after all that attracted the buccaneers had been secured. There had been rejoicings when the king’s ship, sent over expressly to put an end to piracy, found and had an engage- ment with the schooner—one of so successful a nature that after the bloody fight was over, and the furious attack by boarding baffled, three prisoners remained in the hands of the naval captain, two of whom were wounded unto death, and the other uninjured, and who proved to be the captain who had headed the boarders. Abel Dell’s shrift had been a short one. Fortune had been against him, after a long career of success. He saw his ship escape crippled, and he ground his teeth as he called her occu- pants cowards for leaving him in the lurch, being, of course, unaware that the retreat was due to his lieutenant, Abram Mazzard, while when she returned through the determined action of Jack, it came too late, for Abel Dell, otherwise Com- modore Junk, was acting as a warning to pirates, his last voyage being over. The heat seemed to increase on that torrid day till night- fall, when clouds gathered, and the flickering lightning flashed out and illumined the long banks of vapour, displaying their fantastic shapes, to be directly after reflected from the surface of the barely rippled sea. “ Hadn’t we better give up for a bit? Storm may pass before morning,” whispered the thick-set figure standing close by the wheel. “No, Bart; we must go to-night,” was the reply. “Is all ready ?” “ Ay, ready enough ; but I don’t like the job.” “‘ Give up, then, and let Dinny come.” “Did you ever know me give up?” growled Bart, CoOnnicloooks