CHAPTER VIII.
THE ANARCHISTS.
Morning in the Indian Ocean, with its balmy air and sense of lightness and life.
The Rockhampton is forging along at a great rate. She has coals enough to last for three weeks, and before that time her new masters know that they will have anchored where they want to go.
Two days had passed since the explosion and massacre, and the bodies had been flung over to the sharks indiscriminately—men, women and children. A merry feast for the sharks it had been while it lasted, to which many relations had gathered, wrangling, snarling and fighting over the gifts, as so many human relations after a funeral.
But the ship had sailed away from the ensanguined waters, and once more the waves danced blue and limpid. The decks also had been washed clean down, and the saloon and gangways cleared of the horrible sights, so that only the wreckage remained to remind the monsters of the ruthless deed which they had consummated.
Pirates of old made no bones about deeds of slaughter; they gloated in torturing their victims, and enjoyed
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