They had learned on many a bloody deck the merit of their chief, and in their way were loyal to him.
I was made to comprehend all this by the low, muttered utterances of those crowding near me, spoken in nearly every language of the world.
Much I could not even translate, yet enough reached my ears to convince me of the temper of the crew--their feverish eagerness to be again at sea, under command of a captain whom they both hated and feared, yet whom they would follow to the very gates of hell.

Even as they cursed him with hot oaths, in memory of some act of discipline, there came into their voices a tinge of admiration, which furnished me an accurate etching of the man.

They knew him, these hell-hounds of the sea, and from out their mouths I knew him also for what he was--a cruel, cold-blooded monster, yet a genius in crime, and a natural leader of such men as these.

_Black Sanchez!_ All the unspeakable horror which in the past had clung to that name came back again to haunt me; I seemed to hear once more the tales of men who had escaped from his grip alive; to see again the scenes they had witnessed.

It could not seem possible that I was actually upon one of his ships, in the very midst of his wild crew.