Every man of them was an outlaw and, even if not yet an actual murderer at least a potential one, and a consorter with cruel, cowardly brutes in human shape who would destroy without mercy if they were not themselves destroyed--who were, in fact, worse than wild beasts; for whereas the latter take life merely to satisfy the cravings of nature, the average pirate slew for the sheer love of slaying, and in order that he might gratify the unnatural lust that caused him to revel in the sight of human suffering.
