Little is left to be told now. The sick man occasionally rallied, and he loved to dwell like most old men of every station in life, upon his past. He was also given to occasional fits of boasting, and when he did do anything he took good care to let all the world know it. "Did you see that!" he would cry out in an ecstasy of delight. "Did you see the mighty blow I struck? Never in my palmiest days did I do better. Hide, hide your diminished heads, ye Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Waterloo." These famous battles he loved to talk about.

He also took a strange delight in showering upon all his people all kinds of honours or distinctions, and it was said that men were decorated for doing little or nothing. This was a symptom of decay.

Sometimes as he sat pillowed up in his invalid's chair, with the great quack doctor in attendance upon him, he would mumble to himself, "Aye, aye, I knew thee well. There was Wallop, he swept the seas. There was brave Howard, Hawkins, Frobisher, and the rest, and you, my little man! No, no, I've not forgotten Trafalgar and the Nile. Don't you remember them all, Jack? Jack! Jack! where's my cox'sn, he never used to play the truant," but Jack never answered to his call, and the old man wandered on. "Clack, clack go my windlasses; yo! ho! cry my men. Heave in, my lads. Sheet home and hoist up, and bear away for the main."

The great quack smiled as he glanced his eyes up at the long row of shelves, with their burdens of remedies, all of which had been prescribed to meet some fresh complaint, and many a costly dose had been given, which only aggravated the disease; and of many of the others, all that could be said was, that if they did no good, they at least did no harm; but the straight waistcoat every day received some slight addition, which contracted still more the old Buccaneer's actions, until in time he could scarcely call his soul his own.

Thus did this great man pass his declining years. Ruled over by a tyrannical quack. Worried by his own children, to whom he had given every indulgence, at the recommendation of Madam Liberty, until it could with justice be said that they one and all combined to bring the old Buccaneer's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

It is usual in all books, and it is even necessary before you close your pages to kill some of the characters, if not all. Sometimes they die a natural death, at others they are either blown up with gun-powder, or otherwise made away; either with the steel blade, or the leaden bullet of the assassin. The characters who have strutted for a brief space upon the pages of this history must be allowed to die peacefully. The star of Dogvane, the king of the Ojabberaways, after resting for a short while over the green isle of his adoption, set forever in the Western Ocean. His chief jester, the merry Pepper, the man of infinite wisdom and resource, also passed away. Dogvane was never allowed to carry out his grand design of covering the naked population of the Soudan in home-made fabrics. Nor was the cook soothed in his last moments by seeing the object of his life accomplished, namely, the total abolition of the Buccaneer's Upper Chamber; consequently we cannot imagine that his end was peace.

It is a pity that Death is no respecter of persons; had he been, the gifted Pepper, would, no doubt, have been spared to amuse and enlighten the world. Of the other conspirators of the cook's caboose, after having served their allotted time, they also passed away, and it is not recorded that Billy Cheeks, before he died, set fire to the waters of the river that flowed by the Buccaneer's chief city. The carpenter rose high in his master's household, and carried to his grave a goodly load of honour. Of the rest, let history tell what truth or what lies it likes, here no more will be recorded. It will be remembered that our bold Buccaneer was at one time sorely grieved because he only had one general. This seemed to prey so upon his mind in his last days, that he tried to make amends for his past neglect by making generals by the score, whether they were fitted for the position or not; nor did the Buccaneer stop here, for he gave military titles to nearly all his sons, in the hope, no doubt, that amongst the crowd there might be one military genius, or perhaps two.

But stranger things were yet in store for the world, and a graver symptom of decaying power had yet to manifest itself. It has been already said that no man ever did more to degrade noble distinctions and marks of honour than did this, at one time, celebrated Buccaneer, in his declining years. It is true that he had not sunk quite so low as one of his neighbours, who sold such things for a mere money consideration; but he had in his latter years gone some considerable way even in this direction, for he had made money a stepping-stone to preferment. The one who placed drunkenness within easy reach of his people, might reasonably expect to be made a peer. The successful oil-man, or grocer, who had made his five talents into ten, need not despair of earning the at one time honourable distinction of knighthood, while any one who served his party well, even if it were to the discredit of his country, was pretty certain to be ennobled. The number of new creations was so great, that his heraldic officers were nearly worn-out with finding ancestors and pedigrees for all these great people, and it was wonderful what things their industry, and their ingenuity, brought to light. Frequently they followed the poet's art and gave "to airy nothing a local habitation and a name."

Had he promoted all his cooks to seats in the Council Chamber it would not have been so very extraordinary a thing, considering the part that cooks play in this world of ours. The Buccaneer now put a climax to his folly by one day making all his tinkers lords, and all his tailors knights. Whether this was done in a spirit of irony, or from a deep conviction that, as he had gone so far, he could not in justice draw any hard and fast line, will never be known. He was without doubt the best tinker the world had ever seen, and he had a very large show of tinkered pots, pans, and kettles, always on hand, but many thought he might have stopped here.

These last acts were considered to be of so grave a nature that the priest took the place of the doctor, and when this happens little else remains to be told.

Before closing the pages of this history, another catastrophe must be recorded. In one of those storms which were of frequent occurrence in the Buccaneer's island, the old Church Hulk, which had ridden alongside of the Ship of State for so many years in fair weather and in foul, slipped her moorings one dark night, either by accident, or otherwise, and she drifted on to the rocks of discord, and being broken up was plundered; her own crew being fortunate enough to save some of her cargo of riches for themselves. After all was over they set to work to accuse and abuse each other. Some indeed expressed open satisfaction at what had happened, for the discipline on board the old Church Ship had long been too severe for them, and signs of mutiny and insubordination had long been manifest, as has been already shown. These felt that now they could worship their God how they liked, when they liked, and in what costume they liked; and those who wished it, and there were not a few, could even worship more gods than one.

The loss of the Church Ship was put down to various causes by her crew. Some said it was the work of the devil; others said it was through the wickedness of men; but very few of them thought of applying to themselves the proverb, which the old coxswain and his master had brought from the Spanish Main.