[1] Reckless.
And then the tales that he would tell were enough to make a
peaceable man's hair stand on end. There was not a sea fight, nor
marauding nor freebooting adventure that had happened within the
last twenty years, but he seemed perfectly versed in it. He
delighted to talk of the exploits of the buccaneers in the West
Indies and on the Spanish Main.[1] How his eyes would glisten as
he described the waylaying of treasure ships; the desperate fights,
yardarm and yardarm,[2] broadside and broadside;[3] the boarding
and capturing huge Spanish galleons! With what chuckling relish
would he describe the descent upon some rich Spanish colony, the
rifling of a church, the sacking of a convent! You would have
thought you heard some gormandizer dilating upon the roasting of a
savory goose at Michaelmas,[4] as he described the roasting of some
Spanish don to make him discover his treasure,--a detail given with
a minuteness that made every rich old burgher present turn
uncomfortably in his chair. All this would be told with infinite
glee, as if he considered it an excellent joke, and then he would
give such a tyrannical leer in the face of his next neighbor that
the poor man would be fain to laugh out of sheer faint-heartedness.
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