Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/371

three parts of them were drunk, to do with a strange brig as they had done with Leveston's. They stopped her with the guns, and cleared her of every dollar aboard, sending her to the bottom out of pure devilry. I didn't stop 'em; for I had the madness of the drink on me again, and I led 'em at the work then, and when they sent a dozen more coasters after the two that had gone on the voyage to Sandy Hook. By the time we were in New York again, I had got a taste for the new work which nothing could cure. It seemed as if I was to revenge on mankind the wrong I had suffered from one man; and, more than that, I saw there was money in heaps in it. They said at home that piracy was played out, but I asked myself, 'How's that? Give me a ship big enough,' said I, 'and under certain conditions I'll sweep the Atlantic.' There was danger in the job, and it was big enough to tempt that curious brain of mine, which had always dreamed of big jobs since I'd been a bit of a boy; and I was fascinated with this big idea until I couldn't hold myself. That's what led me to keep the crew together at New York, and to return to Michigan, where I found that the mine was making money faster almost than they could bank it, and if I was worth a penny, 1 was worth a million sterling at that very time; for my partner behaved square all through, and paid my share to the