lous in the means by which he hoped to attain his end.
He had resolved on earning, or winning, or taking, such a sum of money as would render him independent of fortune for life. He had an object in this which he deemed worthy of any sacrifice he could offer. Therefore he had fitted out and freighted his brigantine partly at his own expense, partly at that of certain confiding merchants in Leadenhall Street, so as to combine the certain gains of a peaceful trader with the more hazardous venture of a licensed sea-*robber who takes by the strong hand. If the license should expire before his rapacity was satisfied, he would affect ignorance while he could, and when that was no longer practicable, throw off all disguise and hoist the black flag openly at the main.
To this end he had armed his brigantine with the heaviest guns she could carry; had taken in store of provisions, water, spare tackle, gunpowder, pistols, cutlasses, and musquetoons; had manned her with the best seamen and wildest spirits he could lay hands on. These items had run up a considerable bill. He was now preparing a detailed statement of the cost, for the information of his friends in Leadenhall Street.
And all this time, had he only known it, fortune was preparing for him, without effort on his part, the independence he would risk life and character to gain. That very sou'-wester wailing up the narrow street was rattling the windows of a castle on a hill hundreds of miles away, and disturbing the last moments of a dying man in his lordly bedchamber; was driving before it, over a bleak, barren moor, pelting storms of rain to drench the cloaked and booted heir, riding post to reach that death-bed; sowing in a weak constitution the seeds of an illness that would allow him but a brief enjoyment of his inheritance; and the next in succession, the far-off cousin, was making up his accounts in the humble parlour of a seaport pot-house, because he was to sail for the Spanish main with the next tide.
"One, two, tree!"—thump—"one, two, tree!"—thump—"Balancez! Chassez. Un, deux, trois!" Thump after thump, louder and heavier than before. The rafters
