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how do I know the fellow? But he was charming, and I should like to see him again.”

The captain's eyes were flaming with rage.

“You will be locked up,” he said harshly. “You will remain in a cell until the time when we go again to Chagres. And we shall see whether this knife you speak of is sharp enough to keep you here in Panama.”

As she followed him across the garden to her jail, her clear laughter rang out. “Captain Morgan, it has just occurred to me—I have begun to see that a great many different kinds of men make the same kind of husband.”

“Get to your cell,” he ordered her.

“Oh—and Captain Morgan, you will find an old woman on the steps of the Palace. My duenna, she is. Send her to me, please. And now, good-by for the time, sir; I must get to my devotions. The sin to be dissolved, Captain Morgan, is truthfulness. It is a bad thing for the soul, truthfulness.”

He went slowly back to his chair in the Hall of Audience. He was filled with a kind of shame for his manhood. It was as though she had plucked his rapier from its scabbard and scratched his face with it while he stood helpless before her. She had beaten him without apparent effort. Now he quailed before the knowledge of his men’s laughter when they discovered his embarrassment. There would be snickering when his back was turned. Groups of pirates would be silent as he passed, and when he had gone they would break into sharp