The Pirate and the Boy

iverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed me
at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on
requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting
down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate
calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the
gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at
once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been
inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob
the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no
getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have
struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very
pirate himself rattling his chains.