J. Allan Dunn

“ There were plenty of towns where they would be made welcome when the coast was clear, to go swaggering, hip-booted, clad in silks and velvets, roaring out their songs, stampeding the citizens, boarding the taverns, paying freely for unlicensed privilege with broad pieces of eight, looting a quiet plantation, perhaps, and marching away to the crackling of the gutted buildings and the shrieks of women borne off across their shoulders. ”

“ The cutter trailed at the stern.
“Into her and back to the fleet with you,” said the buccaneer to the sulky lieutenant. “Tell your commander and Rogers, the king’s jackal, that Bane and his lads are away. If they want to test the speed of our heels or the gage of our guns, let them come after us. It is a fair wind for a race and clear weather for sighting. Cast off there, or we’ll cut you loose!”
The king’s men were in their craft, dragged with lifting stem behind the sloop. ”

“ That shall be our capital where we’ll all live as kings in our own principality and be in debt to no man.”
CHEER after cheer went up as the course was changed and the sloop, reaching faster and faster, headed for the Spanish Main. The gage was cast. They were outlaws now beyond redemption. Bane had voiced their prime ambition, to set up a kingdom to which they could go between raids, with loot and women, forced from prizes or picked up in Puerto Rico, hoydens as reckless as themselves. ”