Captain Murderer's mission was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with tender brides. On his marriage morning he always caused both sides of the way to church to be planted with curious flowers; and when his bride said, 'Dear Captain Murderer, I never saw flowers like these before; what are they called?' he answered, 'They are called garnish for house-lamb,' and laughed at his ferocious practical joke in a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the noble bridal company with a very sharp show of teeth, then displayed for the first time. He made love in a coach-and-six, and married in a coach-and-twelve, and all his horses were milk-white horses with one red spot on the back, which he caused to be hidden by the harness; for the spot would come there, though every horse was milk-white when Captain Murderer bought him. And the spot was young bride's blood. (To this terrific point I am indebted for my first personal experience of a shudder and cold beads on the forehead.) When Captain Murderer had made an end of feasting and revelry,[Pg 423] and had dismissed the noble guests, and was alone with his wife on the day month after their marriage, it was his whimsical custom to produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver pie-board. Now, there was this special feature in the Captain's courtships, that he always asked if the young lady could make pie-crust, and if she couldn't by nature or education, she was taught. Well, when the bride saw Captain Murderer produce the golden rolling-pin and silver pie-board, she remembered this, and turned up her laced-silk sleeves to make a pie. The Captain brought out a silver pie-dish of immense capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter and eggs and all things needful, except the inside of the pie. Of materials for the staple of the pie itself the Captain brought out none. Then said the lovely bride: 'Dear Captain Murderer, what pie is this to be?' He replied: 'A meat pie.' Then said the lovely bride: 'Dear Captain Murderer, I see no meat.' The Captain humorously retorted: 'Look in the glass.' She looked in the glass, but still she saw no meat, and then the Captain roared with laughter, and suddenly frowning and drawing his sword, bade her roll out the crust. So she rolled out the crust, dropping large tears upon it all the time, because he was so cross, and when she had lined the dish with crust, and had cut the crust all ready to fit the top, the Captain called out: 'I see the meat in the glass!' And the bride looked up at the glass, just in time to see the Captain cutting her head off; and he chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Captain Murderer went on in this way, prospering exceedingly, until he came to choose a bride from two twin sisters, and at first didn't know which to choose;[Pg 424] for, though one was fair and the other dark, they were both equally............