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Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

by Howard Pyle · English · Gutenberg #973 · 418,183 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

Author: Howard Pyle


        
Release date: February 5, 2006 [eBook #973]
                Most recently updated: May 4, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOWARD PYLE'S BOOK OF PIRATES ***




HOWARD PYLE'S BOOK OF PIRATES




Fiction, Fact & Fancy concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the
Spanish Main: From the writing & Pictures of Howard Pyle:


Compiled by Merle Johnson




CONTENTS

     FOREWORD BY MERLE JOHNSON

     PREFACE

     I.   BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
     II.  THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND
     III. WITH THE BUCCANEERS
     IV.  TOM CHIST AND THE TREASURE BOX
     V.   JACK BALLISTER'S FORTUNES
     VI.  BLUESKIN THE PIRATE
     VII. CAPTAIN SCARFIELD




FOREWORD

PIRATES, Buccaneers, Marooners, those cruel but picturesque sea wolves
who once infested the Spanish Main, all live in present-day conceptions
in great degree as drawn by the pen and pencil of Howard Pyle.

Pyle, artist-author, living in the latter half of the nineteenth
century and the first decade of the twentieth, had the fine faculty of
transposing himself into any chosen period of history and making
its people flesh and blood again--not just historical puppets. His
characters were sketched with both words and picture; with both words
and picture he ranks as a master, with a rich personality which makes
his work individual and attractive in either medium.

He was one of the founders of present-day American illustration, and his
pupils and grand-pupils pervade that field to-day. While he bore no
such important part in the world of letters, his stories are modern in
treatment, and yet widely read. His range included historical treatises
concerning his favorite Pirates (Quaker though he was); fiction, with
the same Pirates as principals; Americanized version of Old World fairy
tales; boy stories of the Middle Ages, still best sellers to growing
lads; stories of the occult, such as In Tenebras and To the Soil of the
Earth, which, if newly published, would be hailed as contributions to
our latest cult.

In all these fields Pyle's work may be equaled, surpassed, save in one.
It is improbable that anyone else will ever bring his combination of
interest and talent to the depiction of these old-time Pirates, any more
than there could be a second Remington to paint the now extinct Indians
and gun-fighters of the Great West.

Important and interesting to the student of history, the
adventure-lover, and the artist, as they are, these Pirate stories and
pictures have been scattered through many magazines and books. Here, in
this volume, they are gathered together for the first time, perhaps
not just as Mr. Pyle would have done, but with a completeness and
appreciation of the real value of the material which the author's
modesty might not have permitted. MERLE JOHNSON.




PREFACE

WHY is it that a little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly
titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to
make up the pudding of our modern civilization? And pertinent to this
question another--Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had,
a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? Is
there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork
of the old-time savage? Is there even in these well-regulated times an
unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us
that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? To make my meaning
more clear, would not every boy, for instance--that is, every boy of any
account--rather be a pirate captain than a Member of Parliament? And
we ourselves--would we not rather read such a story as that of Captain
Avery's capture of the East Indian treasure ship, with its beautiful
princess and load of jewels (which gems he sold by the handful, history
sayeth, to a Bristol merchant), than, say, one of Bishop Atterbury's
sermons, or the goodly Master Robert Boyle's religious romance of
"Theodora and Didymus"? It is to be apprehended that to the unregenerate
nature of most of us there can be but one answer to such a query.

In the pleasurable warmth the heart feels in answer to tales of
derring-do Nelson's battles are all mightily interesting, but, even in
spite of their romance of splendid courage, I fancy that the majority of
us would rather turn back over the leaves of history to read how Drake
captured the Spanish treasure ship in the South Sea, and of how he
divided such a quantity of booty in the Island of Plate (so named
because of the tremendous dividend there declared) that it had to be
measured in quart bowls, being too considerable to be counted.

Courage and daring, no matter how mad and ungodly, have always a
redundancy of vim and life to recommend them to the nether man that lies
within us, and no doubt his desperate courage, his battle against the
tremendous odds of all the civilized world of law and order, have had
much to do in making a popular hero of our friend of the black flag. But
it is not altogether courage and daring that endear him to our hearts.
There is another and perhaps a greater kinship in that lust for wealth
that makes one's fancy revel more pleasantly in the story of the
division of treasure in the pirate's island retreat, the hiding of his
godless gains somewhere in the sandy stretch of tropic beach, there to
remain hidden until the time should come to rake the doubloons up
again and to spend them like a lord in polite society, than in the most
thrilling tales of his wonderful escapes from commissioned cruisers
through tortuous channels between the coral reefs.

And what a life of adventure is his, to be sure! A life of constant
alertness, constant danger, constant escape! An ocean Ishmaelite, he
wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now
careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing
suddenly to swoop down on some merchant vessel with rattle of musketry,
shouting, yells, and a hell of unbridled passions let loose to rend and
tear. What a Carlislean hero! What a setting of blood and lust and flame
and rapine for such a hero!

Piracy, such as was practiced in the flower of its days--that is, during
the early eighteenth century--was no sudden growth. It was an evolution,
from the semi-lawful buccaneering of the sixteenth century, just as
buccaneering was upon its part, in a certain sense, an evolution from
the unorganized, unauthorized warfare of the Tudor period.

For there was a deal of piratical smack in the anti-Spanish ventures
of Elizabethan days. Many of the adventurers--of the Sir Francis Drake
school, for instance--actually overstepped again and again the bounds
of international law, entering into the realms of de facto piracy.
Nevertheless, while their doings were not recognized officially by the
government, the perpetrators were neither punished nor reprimanded for
their excursions against Spanish commerce at home or in the West Indies;
rather were they commended, and it was considered not altogether a
discreditable thing for men to get rich upon the spoils taken from
Spanish galleons in times of nominal peace. Many of the most reputable
citizens and merchants of London, when they felt that the queen failed
in her duty of pushing the fight against the great Catholic Power,
fitted out fleets upon their own account and sent them to levy good
Protestant war of a private nature upon the Pope's anointed.

Some of the treasures captured in such ventures were immense,
stupendous, unbelievable. For an example, one can hardly credit the
truth of the "purchase" gained by Drake in the famous capture of the
plate ship in the South Sea.

One of the old buccaneer writers of a century later says: "The Spaniards
affirm to this day that he took at that time twelvescore tons of
plate and sixteen bowls of coined money a man (his number being then
forty-five men in all), insomuch that they were forced to heave much of
it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all."

Maybe this was a very greatly exaggerated statement put by the author
and his Spanish authorities, nevertheless there was enough truth in it
to prove very conclusively to the bold minds of the age that tremendous
profits--"purchases" they called them--were to be made from piracy. The
Western World is filled with the names of daring mariners of those old
days, who came flitting across the great trackless ocean in their little
tublike boats of a few hundred tons burden, partly to explore unknown
seas, partly--largely, perhaps--in pursuit of Spanish treasure:
Frobisher, Davis, Drake, and a score of others.

In this left-handed war against Catholic Spain many of the adventurers
were, no doubt, stirred and incited by a grim, Calvinistic, puritanical
zeal for Protestantism. But equally beyond doubt the gold and silver and
plate of the "Scarlet Woman" had much to do with the persistent energy
with which these hardy mariners braved the mysterious, unknown terrors
of the great unknown ocean that stretched away to the sunset, there in
faraway waters to attack the huge, unwieldy, treasure-laden galleons
that sailed up and down the Caribbean Sea and through the Bahama
Channel.

Of all ghastly and terrible things old-time religious war was the most
ghastly and terrible. One can hardly credit nowadays the cold, callous
cruelty of those times. Generally death was the least penalty that
capture entailed. When the Spaniards made prisoners of the English, the
Inquisition took them in hand, and what that meant all the world knows.
When the English captured a Spanish vessel the prisoners were tortured,
either for the sake of revenge or to compel them to disclose where
treasure lay hidden. Cruelty begat cruelty, and it would be hard to
say whether the Anglo-Saxon or the Latin showed himself to be most
proficient in torturing his victim.

When Cobham, for instance, captured the Spanish ship in the Bay of
Biscay, after all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had
cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and
every Spaniard aboard--whether in arms or not--to sew them up in the
mainsail and to fling them overboard. There were some twenty dead bodies
in the sail when a few days later it was washed up on the shore.

Of course such acts were not likely to go unavenged, and many an
innocent life was sacrificed to pay the debt of Cobham's cruelty.

Nothing could be more piratical than all this. Nevertheless, as was
said, it was winked at, condoned, if not sanctioned, by the law; and it
was not beneath people of family and respectability to take part in it.
But by and by Protestantism and Catholicism began to be at somewhat less
deadly enmity with each other; religious wars were still far enough from
being ended, but the scabbard of the sword was no longer flung away
when the blade was drawn. And so followed a time of nominal peace, and a
generation arose with whom it was no longer respectable and worthy--one
might say a matter of duty--to fight a country with which one's own
land was not at war. Nevertheless, the seed had been sown; it had been
demonstrated that it was feasible to practice piracy against Spain and
not to suffer therefor. Blood had been shed and cruelty practiced, and,
once indulged, no lust seems stronger than that of shedding blood and
practicing cruelty.

Though Spain might be ever so well grounded in peace at home, in the
West Indies she was always at war with the whole world--English, French,
Dutch. It was almost a matter of life or death with her to keep her hold
upon the New World. At home she was bankrupt and, upon the earthquake
of the Reformation, her power was already beginning to totter and to
crumble to pieces. America was her treasure house, and from it alone
could she hope to keep her leaking purse full of gold and silver. So it
was that she strove strenuously, desperately, to keep out the world from
her American possessions--a bootless task, for the old order upon which
her power rested was broken and crumbled forever. But still she strove,
fighting against fate, and so it was that in the tropical America it was
one continual war between her and all the world. Thus it came that,
long after piracy ceased to be allowed at home, it continued in those
far-away seas with unabated vigor, recruiting to its service all that
lawless malign element which gathers together in every newly opened
country where the only law is lawlessness, where might is right and
where a living is to be gained with no more trouble than cutting a
throat. {signature Howard Pyle His Mark}




HOWARD PILE'S BOOK OF PIRATES




Chapter I. BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN

JUST above the northwestern shore of the old island of Hispaniola--the
Santo Domingo of our day--and separated from it only by a narrow channel
of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an
island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as
the Tortuga de Mar, or sea turtle. It is not more than twenty miles in
length by perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of
land, and as you look at it upon the map a pin's head would almost cover
it; yet from that spot, as from a center of inflammation, a burning fire
of human wickedness and ruthlessness and lust overran the world, and
spread terror and death throughout the Spanish West Indies, from St.
Augustine to the island of Trinidad, and from Panama to the coasts of
Peru.

About the middle of the seventeenth century certain French adventurers
set out from the fortified island of St. Christopher in longboats and
hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new
islands. Sighting Hispaniola "with abundance of joy," they landed, and
went into the country, where they found great quantities of wild cattle,
horses, and swine.

Now vessels on the return voyage to Europe from the West Indies needed
revictualing, and food, especially flesh, was at a premium in the
islands of the Spanish Main; wherefore a great profit was to be turned
in preserving beef and pork, and selling the flesh to homeward-bound
vessels.

The northwestern shore of Hispaniola, lying as it does at the eastern
outlet of the old Bahama Channel, running between the island of Cuba and
the great Bahama Banks, lay almost in the very main stream of travel.
The pioneer Frenchmen were not slow to discover the double advantage to
be reaped from the wild cattle that cost them nothing to procure, and a
market for the flesh ready found for them. So down upon Hispaniola they
came by boatloads and shiploads, gathering like a swarm of mosquitoes,
and overrunning the whole western end of the island. There they
established themselves, spending the time alternately in hunting the
wild cattle and buccanning(1) the meat, and squandering their hardly
earned gains in wild debauchery, the opportunities for which were never
lacking in the Spanish West Indies.

     (1) Buccanning, by which the "buccaneers" gained their name,
     was of process of curing thin strips of meat by salting,
     smoking, and drying in the sun.

At first the Spaniards thought nothing of the few travel-worn Frenchmen
who dragged their longboats and hoys up on the beach, and shot a wild
bullock or two to keep body and soul together; but when the few grew to
dozens, and the dozens to scores, and the scores to hundreds, it was a
very different matter, and wrathful grumblings and mutterings began to
be heard among the original settlers.

But of this the careless buccaneers thought never a whit, the only thing
that troubled them being the lack of a more convenient shipping point
than the main island afforded them.

This lack was at last filled by a party of hunters who ventured across
the narrow channel that separated the main island from Tortuga. Here
they found exactly what they needed--a good harbor, just at the junction
of the Windward Channel with the old Bahama Channel--a spot where
four-fifths of the Spanish-Indian trade would pass by their very
wharves.

There were a few Spaniards upon the island, but they were a quiet folk,
and well disposed to make friends with the strangers; but when more
Frenchmen and still more Frenchmen crossed the narrow channel, until
they overran the Tortuga and turned it into one great curing house for
the beef which they shot upon the neighboring island, the Spaniards grew
restive over the matter, just as they had done upon the larger island.

Accordingly, one fine day there came half a dozen great boatloads
of armed Spaniards, who landed upon the Turtle's Back and sent the
Frenchmen flying to the woods and fastnesses of rocks as the chaff flies
before the thunder gust. That night the Spaniards drank themselves
mad and shouted themselves hoarse over their victory, while the beaten
Frenchmen sullenly paddled their canoes back to the main island again,
and the Sea Turtle was Spanish once more.

But the Spaniards were not contented with such a petty triumph as that
of sweeping the island of Tortuga free from the obnoxious strangers,
down upon Hispaniola they came, flushed with their easy victory, and
determined to root out every Frenchman, until not one single buccaneer
remained. For a time they had an easy thing of it, for each French
hunter roamed the woods by himself, with no better company than his
half-wild dogs, so that when two or three Spaniards would meet such a
one, he seldom if ever came out of the woods again, for even his resting
place was lost.

But the very success of the Spaniards brought their ruin along with it,
for the buccaneers began to combine together for self-protection,
and out of that combination arose a strange union of lawless man with
lawless man, so near, so close, that it can scarce be compared to
any other than that of husband and wife. When two entered upon this
comradeship, articles were drawn up and signed by both parties, a common
stock was made of all their possessions, and out into the woods they
went to seek their fortunes; thenceforth they were as one man; they
lived together by day, they slept together by night; what one suffered,
the other suffered; what one gained, the other gained. The only
separation that came betwixt them was death, and then the survivor
inherited all that the other left. And now it was another thing with
Spanish buccaneer hunting, for two buccaneers, reckless of life, quick
of eye, and true of aim, were worth any half dozen of Spanish islanders.

By and by, as the French became more strongly organized for mutual
self-protection, they assumed the offensive. Then down they came upon
Tortuga, and now it was the turn of the Spanish to be hunted off the
island like vermin, and the turn of the French to shout their victory.

Having firmly established themselves, a governor was sent to the French
of Tortuga, one M. le Passeur, from the island of St. Christopher; the
Sea Turtle was fortified, and colonists, consisting of men of doubtful
character and women of whose character there could be no doubt whatever,
began pouring in upon the island, for it was said that the buccaneers
thought no more of a doubloon than of a Lima bean, so that this was the
place for the brothel and the brandy shop to reap their golden harvest,
and the island remained French.

Hitherto the Tortugans had been content to gain as much as possible from
the homeward-bound vessels through the orderly channels of legitimate
trade. It was reserved for Pierre le Grand to introduce piracy as a
quicker and more easy road to wealth than the semi-honest exchange they
had been used to practice.

Gathering together eight-and-twenty other spirits as hardy and reckless
as himself, he put boldly out to sea in a boat hardly large enough to
hold his crew, and running down the Windward Channel and out into the
Caribbean Sea, he lay in wait for such a prize as might be worth the
risks of winning.

For a while their luck was steadily against them; their provisions and
water began to fail, and they saw nothing before them but starvation
or a humiliating return. In this extremity they sighted a Spanish ship
belonging to a "flota" which had become separated from her consorts.

The boat in which the buccaneers sailed might, perhaps, have served for
the great ship's longboat; the Spaniards out-numbered them three to
one, and Pierre and his men were armed only with pistols and cutlasses;
nevertheless this was their one and their only chance, and they
determined to take the Spanish ship or to die in the attempt. Down upon
the Spaniard they bore through the dusk of the night, and giving orders
to the "chirurgeon" to scuttle their craft under them as they were
leaving it, they swarmed up the side of the unsuspecting ship and upon
its decks in a torrent--pistol in one hand and cutlass in the other. A
part of them ran to the gun room and secured the arms and ammunition,
pistoling or cutting down all such as stood in their way or offered
opposition; the other party burst into the great cabin at the heels of
Pierre le Grand, found the captain and a party of his friends at cards,
set a pistol to his breast, and demanded him to deliver up the ship.
Nothing remained for the Spaniard but to yield, for there was no
alternative between surrender and death. And so the great prize was won.

It was not long before the news of this great exploit and of the vast
treasure gained reached the ears of the buccaneers of Tortuga and
Hispaniola. Then what a hubbub and an uproar and a tumult there was!
Hunting wild cattle and buccanning the meat was at a discount, and the
one and only thing to do was to go a-pirating; for where one such prize
had been won, others were to be had.

In a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular
business. Articles were drawn up betwixt captain and crew, compacts were
sealed, and agreements entered into by the one party and the other.

In all professions there are those who make their mark, those who
succeed only moderately well, and those who fail more or less entirely.
Nor did pirating differ from this general rule, for in it were men who
rose to distinction, men whose names, something tarnished and rusted by
the lapse of years, have come down even to us of the present day.

Pierre Francois, who, with his boatload of six-and-twenty desperadoes,
ran boldly into the midst of the pearl fleet off the coast of
South America, attacked the vice admiral under the very guns of two
men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with eight guns and
manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only
that having to put on sail, their mainmast went by the board, whereupon
the men-of-war came up with them, and the prize was lost.

But even though there were two men-of-war against all that remained of
six-and-twenty buccaneers, the Spaniards were glad enough to make terms
with them for the surrender of the vessel, whereby Pierre Francois and
his men came off scot-free.

Bartholomew Portuguese was a worthy of even more note. In a boat manned
with thirty fellow adventurers he fell upon a great ship off Cape
Corrientes, manned with threescore and ten men, all told.

Her he assaulted again and again, beaten off with the very pressure of
numbers only to renew the assault, until the Spaniards who survived,
some fifty in all, surrendered to twenty living pirates, who poured upon
their decks like a score of blood-stained, powder-grimed devils.

They lost their vessel by recapture, and Bartholomew Portuguese
barely escaped with his life through a series of almost unbelievable
adventures. But no sooner had he fairly escaped from the clutches of the
Spaniards than, gathering together another band of adventurers, he fell
upon the very same vessel in the gloom of the night, recaptured her when
she rode at anchor in the harbor of Campeche under the guns of the fort,
slipped the cable, and was away without the loss of a single man. He
lost her in a hurricane soon afterward, just off the Isle of Pines; but
the deed was none the less daring for all that.

Another notable no less famous than these two worthies was Roch
Braziliano, the truculent Dutchman who came up from the coast of Brazil
to the Spanish Main with a name ready-made for him. Upon the very first
adventure which he undertook he captured a plate ship of fabulous value,
and brought her safely into Jamaica; and when at last captured by the
Spaniards, he fairly frightened them into letting him go by truculent
threats of vengeance from his followers.

Such were three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the Spanish
Main. There were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless, no less
insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they.

The effects of this freebooting soon became apparent. The risks to be
assumed by the owners of vessels and the shippers of merchandise became
so enormous that Spanish commerce was practically swept away from these
waters. No vessel dared to venture out of port excepting under escort
of powerful men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from
molestation. Exports from Central and South America were sent to Europe
by way of the Strait of Magellan, and little or none went through the
passes between the Bahamas and the Caribbees.

So at last "buccaneering," as it had come to be generically called,
ceased to pay the vast dividends that it had done at first. The cream
was skimmed off, and only very thin milk was left in the dish. Fabulous
fortunes were no longer earned in a ten days' cruise, but what money
was won hardly paid for the risks of the winning. There must be a new
departure, or buccaneering would cease to exist.

Then arose one who showed the buccaneers a new way to squeeze money out
of the Spaniards. This man was an Englishman--Lewis Scot.

The stoppage of commerce on the Spanish Main had naturally tended to
accumulate all the wealth gathered and produced into the chief fortified
cities and towns of the West Indies. As there no longer existed prizes
upon the sea, they must be gained upon the land, if they were to be
gained at all. Lewis Scot was the first to appreciate this fact.

Gathering together a large and powerful body of men as hungry for
plunder and as desperate as himself, he descended upon the town of
Campeche, which he captured and sacked, stripping it of everything that
could possibly be carried away.

When the town was cleared to the bare walls Scot threatened to set the
torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed by a large sum
of money which he demanded. With this booty he set sail for Tortuga,
where he arrived safely--and the problem was solved.

After him came one Mansvelt, a buccaneer of lesser note, who first made
a descent upon the isle of Saint Catharine, now Old Providence, which he
took, and, with this as a base, made an unsuccessful descent upon Neuva
Granada and Cartagena. His name might not have been handed down to us
along with others of greater fame had he not been the master of that
most apt of pupils, the great Captain Henry Morgan, most famous of
all the buccaneers, one time governor of Jamaica, and knighted by King
Charles II.

After Mansvelt followed the bold John Davis, native of Jamaica, where he
sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk. With only fourscore
men, he swooped down upon the great city of Nicaragua in the darkness of
the night, silenced the sentry with the thrust of a knife, and then
fell to pillaging the churches and houses "without any respect or
veneration."

Of course it was but a short time until the whole town was in an uproar
of alarm, and there was nothing left for the little handful of men to do
but to make the best of their way to their boats. They were in the town
but a short time, but in that time they were able to gather together and
to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of
eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners,
whom they held for ransom.

And now one appeared upon the scene who reached a far greater height
than any had arisen to before. This was Francois l'Olonoise, who
sacked the great city of Maracaibo and the town of Gibraltar. Cold,
unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood was never moved by one
single pulse of human warmth, his icy heart was never touched by one ray
of mercy or one spark of pity for the hapless wretches who chanced to
fall into his bloody hands.

Against him the governor of Havana sent out a great war vessel, and with
it a negro executioner, so that there might be no inconvenient delays of
law after the pirates had been captured. But l'Olonoise did not wait for
the coming of the war vessel; he went out to meet it, and he found it
where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river Estra. At the
dawn of the morning he made his attack sharp, unexpected, decisive. In a
little while the Spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the vessel
was taken. Then came the end. One by one the poor shrieking wretches
were dragged up from below, and one by one they were butchered in cold
blood, while l'Olonoise stood upon the poop deck and looked coldly down
upon what was being done. Among the rest the negro was dragged upon the
deck. He begged and implored that his life might be spared, promising to
tell all that might be asked of him. L'Olonoise questioned him, and when
he had squeezed him dry, waved his hand coldly, and the poor black went
with the rest. Only one man was spared; him he sent to the governor of
Havana with a message that henceforth he would give no quarter to any
Spaniard whom he might meet in arms--a message which was not an empty
threat.

The rise of l'Olonoise was by no means rapid. He worked his way up by
dint of hard labor and through much ill fortune. But by and by, after
many reverses, the tide turned, and carried him with it from one success
to another, without let or stay, to the bitter end.

Cruising off Maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a vast
amount of plate and ready money, and there conceived the design of
descending upon the powerful town of Maracaibo itself. Without loss of
time he gathered together five hundred picked scoundrels from Tortuga,
and taking with him one Michael de Basco as land captain, and two
hundred more buccaneers whom he commanded, down he came into the Gulf of
Venezuela and upon the doomed city like a blast of the plague. Leaving
their vessels, the buccaneers made a land attack upon the fort that
stood at the mouth of the inlet that led into Lake Maracaibo and guarded
the city.

The Spaniards held out well, and fought with all the might that
Spaniards possess; but after a fight of three hours all was given up and
the garrison fled, spreading terror and confusion before them. As
many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so escaped in boats to
Gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on the shores of Lake Maracaibo,
at the distance of some forty leagues or more.

Then the pirates marched into the town, and what followed may be
conceived. It was a holocaust of lust, of passion, and of blood such as
even the Spanish West Indies had never seen before. Houses and churches
were sacked until nothing was left but the bare walls; men and women
were tortured to compel them to disclose where more treasure lay hidden.

Then, having wrenched all that they could from Maracaibo, they
entered the lake and descended upon Gibraltar, where the rest of the
panic-stricken inhabitants were huddled together in a blind terror.

The governor of Merida, a brave soldier who had served his king in
Flanders, had gathered together a troop of eight hundred men, had
fortified the town, and now lay in wait for the coming of the pirates.
The pirates came all in good time, and then, in spite of the brave
defense, Gibraltar also fell. Then followed a repetition of the scenes
that had been enacted in Maracaibo for the past fifteen days, only here
they remained for four horrible weeks, extorting money--money! ever
money!--from the poor poverty-stricken, pest-ridden souls crowded into
that fever hole of a town.

Then they left, but before they went they demanded still more money--ten
thousand pieces of eight--as a ransom for the town, which otherwise
should be given to the flames. There was some hesitation on the part of
the Spaniards, some disposition to haggle, but there was no hesitation
on the part of l'Olonoise. The torch WAS set to the town as he had
promised, whereupon the money was promptly paid, and the pirates were
piteously begged to help quench the spreading flames. This they were
pleased to do, but in spite of all their efforts nearly half of the town
was consumed.

After that they returned to Maracaibo again, where they demanded a
ransom of thirty thousand pieces of eight for the city. There was no
haggling here, thanks to the fate of Gibraltar; only it was utterly
impossible to raise that much money in all of the poverty-stricken
region. But at last the matter was compromised, and the town was
redeemed for twenty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred head of
cattle, and tortured Maracaibo was quit of them.

In the Ile de la Vache the buccaneers shared among themselves two
hundred and sixty thousand pieces of eight, besides jewels and bales of
silk and linen and miscellaneous plunder to a vast amount.

Such was the one great deed of l'Olonoise; from that time his star
steadily declined--for even nature seemed fighting against such a
monster--until at last he died a miserable, nameless death at the hands
of an unknown tribe of Indians upon the Isthmus of Darien.

And now we come to the greatest of all the buccaneers, he who stands
pre-eminent among them, and whose name even to this day is a charm
to call up his deeds of daring, his dauntless courage, his truculent
cruelty, and his insatiate and unappeasable lust for gold--Capt. Henry
Morgan, the bold Welshman, who brought buccaneering to the height and
flower of its glory.

Having sold himself, after the manner of the times, for his passage
across the seas, he worked out his time of servitude at the Barbados. As
soon as he had regained his liberty he entered upon the trade of piracy,
wherein he soon reached a position of considerable prominence. He was
associated with Mansvelt at the time of the latter's descent upon
Saint Catharine's Isle, the importance of which spot, as a center of
operations against the neighboring coasts, Morgan never lost sight of.

The first attempt that Capt. Henry Morgan ever made against any town
in the Spanish Indies was the bold descent upon the city of Puerto del
Principe in the island of Cuba, with a mere handful of men. It was
a deed the boldness of which has never been outdone by any of a like
nature--not even the famous attack upon Panama itself. Thence they
returned to their boats in the very face of the whole island of Cuba,
aroused and determined upon their extermination. Not only did they make
good their escape, but they brought away with them a vast amount of
plunder, computed at three hundred thousand pieces of eight, besides
five hundred head of cattle and many prisoners held for ransom.

But when the division of all this wealth came to be made, lo! there were
only fifty thousand pieces of eight to be found. What had become of the
rest no man could tell but Capt. Henry Morgan himself. Honesty among
thieves was never an axiom with him.

Rude, truculent, and dishonest as Captain Morgan was, he seems to have
had a wonderful power of persuading the wild buccaneers under him to
submit everything to his judgment, and to rely entirely upon his word.
In spite of the vast sum of money that he had very evidently made away
with, recruits poured in upon him, until his band was larger and better
equipped than ever.

And now it was determined that the plunder harvest was ripe at Porto
Bello, and that city's doom was sealed. The town was defended by two
strong castles thoroughly manned, and officered by as gallant a soldier
as ever carried Toledo steel at his side. But strong castles and gallant
soldiers weighed not a barleycorn with the buccaneers when their blood
was stirred by the lust of gold.

Landing at Puerto Naso, a town some ten leagues westward of Porto Bello,
they marched to the latter town, and coming before the castle, boldly
demanded its surrender. It was refused, whereupon Morgan threatened that
no quarter should be given. Still surrender was refused; and then the
castle was attacked, and after a bitter struggle was captured. Morgan
was as good as his word: every man in the castle was shut in the guard
room, the match was set to the powder magazine, and soldiers, castle,
and all were blown into the air, while through all the smoke and the
dust the buccaneers poured into the town. Still the governor held out in
the other castle, and might have made good his defense, but that he was
betrayed by the soldiers under him. Into the castle poured the howling
buccaneers. But still the governor fought on, with his wife and daughter
clinging to his knees and beseeching him to surrender, and the blood
from his wounded forehead trickling down over his white collar, until a
merciful bullet put an end to the vain struggle.

Here were enacted the old scenes. Everything plundered that could be
taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself.

This time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made of
the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of
eight, besides merchandise and jewels.

The next towns to suffer were poor Maracaibo and Gibraltar, now just
beginning to recover from the desolation wrought by l'Olonoise. Once
more both towns were plundered of every bale of merchandise and of every
plaster, and once more both were ransomed until everything was squeezed
from the wretched inhabitants.

Here affairs were like to have taken a turn, for when Captain Morgan
came up from Gibraltar he found three great men-of-war lying in the
entrance to the lake awaiting his coming. Seeing that he was hemmed in
the narrow sheet of water, Captain Morgan was inclined to compromise
matters, even offering to relinquish all the plunder he had gained if
he were allowed to depart in peace. But no; the Spanish admiral would
hear nothing of this. Having the pirates, as he thought, securely in
his grasp, he would relinquish nothing, but would sweep them from the
face of the sea once and forever.

That was an unlucky determination for the Spaniards to reach, for
instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it would do,
it simply turned their mad courage into as mad desperation.

A great vessel that they had taken with the town of Maracaibo was
converted into a fire ship, manned with logs of wood in montera caps and
sailor jackets, and filled with brimstone, pitch, and palm leaves soaked
in oil. Then out of the lake the pirates sailed to meet the Spaniards,
the fire ship leading the way, and bearing down directly upon the
admiral's vessel. At the helm stood volunteers, the most desperate and
the bravest of all the pirate gang, and at the ports stood the logs of
wood in montera caps. So they came up with the admiral, and grappled
with his ship in spite of the thunder of all his great guns, and then
the Spaniard saw, all too late, what his opponent really was.

He tried to swing loose, but clouds of smoke and almost instantly a mass
of roaring flames enveloped both vessels, and the admiral was lost. The
second vessel, not wishing to wait for the coming of the pirates, bore
down upon the fort, under the guns of which the cowardly crew sank
her, and made the best of their way to the shore. The third vessel, not
having an opportunity to escape, was taken by the pirates without the
slightest resistance, and the passage from the lake was cleared. So
the buccaneers sailed away, leaving Maracaibo and Gibraltar prostrate a
second time.

And now Captain Morgan determined to undertake another venture, the like
of which had never been equaled in all of the annals of buccaneering.
This was nothing less than the descent upon and the capture of Panama,
which was, next to Cartagena, perhaps, the most powerful and the most
strongly fortified city in the West Indies.

In preparation for this venture he obtained letters of marque from the
governor of Jamaica, by virtue of which elastic commission he began
immediately to gather around him all material necessary for the
undertaking.

When it became known abroad that the great Captain Morgan was about
undertaking an adventure that was to eclipse all that was ever done
before, great numbers came flocking to his standard, until he had
gathered together an army of two thousand or more desperadoes and
pirates wherewith to prosecute his adventure, albeit the venture itself
was kept a total secret from everyone. Port Couillon, in the island of
Hispaniola, over against the Ile de la Vache, was the place of muster,
and thither the motley band gathered from all quarters. Provisions had
been plundered from the mainland wherever they could be obtained, and by
the 24th of October, 1670 (O. S.), everything was in readiness.

The island of Saint Catharine, as it may be remembered, was at one time
captured by Mansvelt, Morgan's master in his trade of piracy. It had
been retaken by the Spaniards, and was now thoroughly fortified by them.
Almost the first attempt that Morgan had made as a master pirate was the
retaking of Saint Catharine's Isle. In that undertaking he had failed;
but now, as there was an absolute need of some such place as a base
of operations, he determined that the place must be taken. And it was
taken.

The Spaniards, during the time of their possession, had fortified it
most thoroughly and completely, and had the governor thereof been as
brave as he who met his death in the castle of Porto Bello, there might
have been a different tale to tell. As it was, he surrendered it in a
most cowardly fashion, merely stipulating that there should be a sham
attack by the buccaneers, whereby his credit might be saved. And so
Saint Catharine was won.

The next step to be taken was the capture of the castle of Chagres,
which guarded the mouth of the river of that name, up which river the
buccaneers would be compelled to transport their troops and provisions
for the attack upon the city of Panama. This adventure was undertaken by
four hundred picked men under command of Captain Morgan himself.

The castle of Chagres, known as San Lorenzo by the Spaniards, stood upon
the top of an abrupt rock at the mouth of the river, and was one of
the strongest fortresses for its size in all of the West Indies. This
stronghold Morgan must have if he ever hoped to win Panama.

The attack of the castle and the defense of it were equally fierce,
bloody, and desperate. Again and again the buccaneers assaulted, and
again and again they were beaten back. So the morning came, and it
seemed as though the pirates had been baffled this time. But just at
this juncture the thatch of palm leaves on the roofs of some of the
buildings inside the fortifications took fire, a conflagration followed,
which caused the explosion of one of the magazines, and in the
paralysis of terror that followed, the pirates forced their way into
the fortifications, and the castle was won. Most of the Spaniards
flung themselves from the castle walls into the river or upon the rocks
beneath, preferring death to capture and possible torture; many who
were left were put to the sword, and some few were spared and held as
prisoners.

So fell the castle of Chagres, and nothing now lay between the
buccaneers and the city of Panama but the intervening and trackless
forests.

And now the name of the town whose doom was sealed was no secret.

Up the river of Chagres went Capt. Henry Morgan and twelve hundred men,
packed closely in their canoes; they never stopped, saving now and then
to rest their stiffened legs, until they had come to a place known as
Cruz de San Juan Gallego, where they were compelled to leave their boats
on account of the shallowness of the water.

Leaving a guard of one hundred and sixty men to protect their boats as
a place of refuge in case they should be worsted before Panama, they
turned and plunged into the wilderness before them.

There a more powerful foe awaited them than a host of Spaniards
with match, powder, and lead--starvation. They met but little or no
opposition in their progress; but wherever they turned they found every
fiber of meat, every grain of maize, every ounce of bread or meal, swept
away or destroyed utterly before them. Even when the buccaneers had
successfully overcome an ambuscade or an attack, and had sent the
Spaniards flying, the fugitives took the time to strip their dead
comrades of every grain of food in their leathern sacks, leaving nothing
but the empty bags.

Says the narrator of these events, himself one of the expedition, "They
afterward fell to eating those leathern bags, as affording something to
the ferment of their stomachs."

Ten days they struggled through this bitter privation, doggedly forcing
their way onward, faint with hunger and haggard with weakness and fever.
Then, from the high hill and over the tops of the forest trees, they saw
the steeples of Panama, and nothing remained between them and their goal
but the fighting of four Spaniards to every one of them--a simple thing
which they had done over and over again.

Down they poured upon Panama, and out came the Spaniards to meet them;
four hundred horse, two thousand five hundred foot, and two thousand
wild bulls which had been herded together to be driven over the
buccaneers so that their ranks might be disordered and broken. The
buccaneers were only eight hundred strong; the others had either
fallen in battle or had dropped along the dreary pathway through the
wilderness; but in the space of two hours the Spaniards were flying
madly over the plain, minus six hundred who lay dead or dying behind
them.

As for the bulls, as many of them as were shot served as food there and
then for the half-famished pirates, for the buccaneers were never more
at home than in the slaughter of cattle.

Then they marched toward the city. Three hours' more fighting and
they were in the streets, howling, yelling, plundering, gorging,
dram-drinking, and giving full vent to all the vile and nameless lusts
that burned in their hearts like a hell of fire. And now followed the
usual sequence of events--rapine, cruelty, and extortion; only this time
there was no town to ransom, for Morgan had given orders that it should
be destroyed. The torch was set to it, and Panama, one of the greatest
cities in the New World, was swept from the face of the earth. Why the
deed was done, no man but Morgan could tell. Perhaps it was that all
the secret hiding places for treasure might be brought to light; but
whatever the reason was, it lay hidden in the breast of the great
buccaneer himself. For three weeks Morgan and his men abode in this
dreadful place; and they marched away with ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE
beasts of burden loaded with treasures of gold and silver and jewels,
besides great quantities of merchandise, and six hundred prisoners held
for ransom.

Whatever became of all that vast wealth, and what it amounted to, no
man but Morgan ever knew, for when a division was made it was found that
there was only TWO HUNDRED PIECES OF EIGHT TO EACH MAN.

When this dividend was declared a howl of execration went up, under
which even Capt. Henry Morgan quailed. At night he and four other
commanders slipped their cables and ran out to sea, and it was said that
these divided the greater part of the booty among themselves. But the
wealth plundered at Panama could hardly have fallen short of a million
and a half of dollars. Computing it at this reasonable figure, the
various prizes won by Henry Morgan in the West Indies would stand as
follows: Panama, $1,500,000; Porto Bello, $800,000; Puerto del
Principe, $700,000; Maracaibo and Gibraltar, $400,000; various piracies,
$250,000--making a grand total of $3,650,000 as the vast harvest of
plunder. With this fabulous wealth, wrenched from the Spaniards by
means of the rack and the cord, and pilfered from his companions by the
meanest of thieving, Capt. Henry Morgan retired from business, honored
of all, rendered famous by his deeds, knighted by the good King Charles
II, and finally appointed governor of the rich island of Jamaica.

Other buccaneers followed him. Campeche was taken and sacked, and even
Cartagena itself fell; but with Henry Morgan culminated the glory of
the buccaneers, and from that time they declined in power and wealth and
wickedness until they were finally swept away.

The buccaneers became bolder and bolder. In fact, so daring were their
crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous
barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters,
lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered
hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was
exterminated. But, so far from being exterminated, the individual
members were merely scattered north, south, east, and west, each forming
a nucleus around which gathered and clustered the very worst of the
offscouring of humanity.

The result was that when the seventeenth century was fairly packed away
with its lavender in the store chest of the past, a score or more
bands of freebooters were cruising along the Atlantic seaboard in armed
vessels, each with a black flag with its skull and crossbones at the
fore, and with a nondescript crew made up of the tags and remnants of
civilized and semicivilized humanity (white, black, red, and yellow),
known generally as marooners, swarming upon the decks below.

Nor did these offshoots from the old buccaneer stem confine their
depredations to the American seas alone; the East Indies and the African
coast also witnessed their doings, and suffered from them, and even the
Bay of Biscay had good cause to remember more than one visit from them.

Worthy sprigs from so worthy a stem improved variously upon the
parent methods; for while the buccaneers were content to prey upon the
Spaniards alone, the marooners reaped the harvest from the commerce of
all nations.

So up and down the Atlantic seaboard they cruised, and for the fifty
years that marooning was in the flower of its glory it was a sorrowful
time for the coasters of New England, the middle provinces, and the
Virginias, sailing to the West Indies with their cargoes of salt fish,
grain, and tobacco. Trading became almost as dangerous as privateering,
and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the
flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship.

As by far the largest part of the trading in American waters was
conducted by these Yankee coasters, so by far the heaviest blows, and
those most keenly felt, fell upon them. Bulletin after bulletin came
to port with its doleful tale of this vessel burned or that vessel
scuttled, this one held by the pirates for their own use or that one
stripped of its goods and sent into port as empty as an eggshell from
which the yolk had been sucked. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Charleston suffered alike, and worthy ship owners had to leave off
counting their losses upon their fingers and take to the slate to keep
the dismal record.

"Maroon--to put ashore on a desert isle, as a sailor, under pretense of
having committed some great crime." Thus our good Noah Webster gives us
the dry bones, the anatomy, upon which the imagination may construct a
specimen to suit itself.

It is thence that the marooners took their name, for marooning was
one of their most effective instruments of punishment or revenge. If a
pirate broke one of the many rules which governed the particular band
to which he belonged, he was marooned; did a captain defend his ship to
such a degree as to be unpleasant to the pirates attacking it, he
was marooned; even the pirate captain himself, if he displeased his
followers by the severity of his rule, was in danger of having the same
punishment visited upon him which he had perhaps more than once visited
upon another.

The process of marooning was as simple as terrible. A suitable place was
chosen (generally some desert isle as far removed as possible from the
pathway of commerce), and the condemned man was rowed from the ship to
the beach. Out he was bundled upon the sand spit; a gun, a half dozen
bullets, a few pinches of powder, and a bottle of water were chucked
ashore after him, and away rowed the boat's crew back to the ship,
leaving the poor wretch alone to rave away his life in madness, or to
sit sunken in his gloomy despair till death mercifully released him from
torment. It rarely if ever happened that anything was known of him after
having been marooned. A boat's crew from some vessel, sailing by chance
that way, might perhaps find a few chalky bones bleaching upon the white
sand in the garish glare of the sunlight, but that was all. And such
were marooners.

By far the largest number of pirate captains were Englishmen, for,
from the days of good Queen Bess, English sea captains seemed to have
a natural turn for any species of venture that had a smack of piracy
in it, and from the great Admiral Drake of the old, old days, to the
truculent Morgan of buccaneering times, the Englishman did the boldest
and wickedest deeds, and wrought the most damage.

First of all upon the list of pirates stands the bold Captain Avary, one
of the institutors of marooning. Him we see but dimly, half hidden by
the glamouring mists of legends and tradition. Others who came afterward
outstripped him far enough in their doings, but he stands pre-eminent as
the first of marooners of whom actual history has been handed down to us
of the present day.

When the English, Dutch, and Spanish entered into an alliance to
suppress buccaneering in the West Indies, certain worthies of Bristol,
in old England, fitted out two vessels to assist in this laudable
project; for doubtless Bristol trade suffered smartly from the Morgans
and the l'Olonoises of that old time. One of these vessels was named the
Duke, of which a certain Captain Gibson was the commander and Avary the
mate.

Away they sailed to the West Indies, and there Avary became impressed by
the advantages offered by piracy, and by the amount of good things that
were to be gained by very little striving.

One night the captain (who was one of those fellows mightily addicted
to punch), instead of going ashore to saturate himself with rum at the
ordinary, had his drink in his cabin in private. While he lay snoring
away the effects of his rum in the cabin, Avary and a few other
conspirators heaved the anchor very leisurely, and sailed out of the
harbor of Corunna, and through the midst of the allied fleet riding at
anchor in the darkness.

By and by, when the morning came, the captain was awakened by the
pitching and tossing of the vessel, the rattle and clatter of the tackle
overhead, and the noise of footsteps passing and repassing hither and
thither across the deck. Perhaps he lay for a while turning the matter
over and over in his muddled head, but he presently rang the bell, and
Avary and another fellow answered the call.

"What's the matter?" bawls the captain from his berth.

"Nothing," says Avary, coolly.

"Something's the matter with the ship," says the captain. "Does she
drive? What weather is it?"

"Oh no," says Avary; "we are at sea."

"At sea?"

"Come, come!" says Avary: "I'll tell you; you must know that I'm the
captain of the ship now, and you must be packing from this here cabin.
We are bound to Madagascar, to make all of our fortunes, and if you're a
mind to ship for the cruise, why, we'll be glad to have you, if you will
be sober and mind your own business; if not, there is a boat alongside,
and I'll have you set ashore."

The poor half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under the
command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he bundled, and away
he rowed with four or five of the crew, who, like him, refused to join
with their jolly shipmates.

The rest of them sailed away to the East Indies, to try their fortunes
in those waters, for our Captain Avary was of a high spirit, and had
no mind to fritter away his time in the West Indies squeezed dry by
buccaneer Morgan and others of lesser note. No, he would make a bold
stroke for it at once, and make or lose at a single cast.

On his way he picked up a couple of like kind with himself--two sloops
off Madagascar. With these he sailed away to the coast of India, and for
a time his name was lost in the obscurity of uncertain history. But
only for a time, for suddenly it flamed out in a blaze of glory. It was
reported that a vessel belonging to the Great Mogul, laden with treasure
and bearing the monarch's own daughter upon a holy pilgrimage to Mecca
(they being Mohammedans), had fallen in with the pirates, and after a
short resistance had been surrendered, with the damsel, her court, and
all the diamonds, pearls, silk, silver, and gold aboard. It was rumored
that the Great Mogul, raging at the insult offered to him through his
own flesh and blood, had threatened to wipe out of existence the few
English settlements scattered along the coast; whereat the honorable
East India Company was in a pretty state of fuss and feathers. Rumor,
growing with the telling, has it that Avary is going to marry the
Indian princess, willy-nilly, and will turn rajah, and eschew piracy as
indecent. As for the treasure itself, there was no end to the extent to
which it grew as it passed from mouth to mouth.

Cracking the nut of romance and exaggeration, we come to the kernel of
the story--that Avary did fall in with an Indian vessel laden with great
treasure (and possibly with the Mogul's daughter), which he captured,
and thereby gained a vast prize.

Having concluded that he had earned enough money by the trade he had
undertaken, he determined to retire and live decently for the rest of
his life upon what he already had. As a step toward this object, he set
about cheating his Madagascar partners out of their share of what had
been gained. He persuaded them to store all the treasure in his vessel,
it being the largest of the three; and so, having it safely in hand, he
altered the course of his ship one fine night, and when the morning
came the Madagascar sloops found themselves floating upon a wide ocean
without a farthing of the treasure for which they had fought so hard,
and for which they might whistle for all the good it would do them.

At first Avary had a great part of a mind to settle at Boston, in
Massachusetts, and had that little town been one whit less bleak and
forbidding, it might have had the honor of being the home of this famous
man. As it was, he did not like the looks of it, so he sailed away to
the eastward, to Ireland, where he settled himself at Biddeford, in
hopes of an easy life of it for the rest of his days.

Here he found himself the possessor of a plentiful stock of jewels, such
as pearls, diamonds, rubies, etc., but with hardly a score of honest
farthings to jingle in his breeches pocket. He consulted with a certain
merchant of Bristol concerning the disposal of the stones--a fellow
not much more cleanly in his habits of honesty than Avary himself.
This worthy undertook to act as Avary's broker. Off he marched with
the jewels, and that was the last that the pirate saw of his Indian
treasure.

Perhaps the most famous of all the piratical names to American ears are
those of Capt. Robert Kidd and Capt. Edward Teach, or "Blackbeard."

Nothing will be ventured in regard to Kidd at this time, nor in regard
to the pros and cons as to whether he really was or was not a pirate,
after all. For many years he was the very hero of heroes of piratical
fame, there was hardly a creek or stream or point of land along our
coast, hardly a convenient bit of good sandy beach, or hump of rock, or
water-washed cave, where fabulous treasures were not said to have been
hidden by this worthy marooner. Now we are assured that he never was
a pirate, and never did bury any treasure, excepting a certain chest,
which he was compelled to hide upon Gardiner's Island--and perhaps even
it was mythical.

So poor Kidd must be relegated to the dull ranks of simply respectable
people, or semirespectable people at best.

But with "Blackbeard" it is different, for in him we have a real,
ranting, raging, roaring pirate per se--one who really did bury
treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who
committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of
both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill, the place to which
he has been assigned for generations, and who may be depended upon to
hold his place in the confidence of others for generations to come.

Captain Teach was a Bristol man born, and learned his trade on board of
sundry privateers in the East Indies during the old French war--that of
1702--and a better apprenticeship could no man serve. At last, somewhere
about the latter part of the year 1716, a privateering captain, one
Benjamin Hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him in command of
a sloop--a lately captured prize and Blackbeard's fortune was made. It
was a very slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert
"privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before Teach
made that change. Not only did he make it himself, but he persuaded his
old captain to join with him.

And now fairly began that series of bold and lawless depredations which
have made his name so justly famous, and which placed him among the very
greatest of marooning freebooters.

"Our hero," says the old historian who sings of the arms and bravery of
this great man--"our hero assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from that
large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole
face, and frightened America more than any comet that appeared there
in a long time. He was accustomed to twist it with ribbons into small
tails, after the manner of our Ramillies wig, and turn them about his
ears. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three
brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoleers; he stuck lighted
matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face, and
his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a
figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a Fury from hell to look
more frightful."

The night before the day of the action in which he was killed he sat up
drinking with some congenial company until broad daylight. One of them
asked him if his poor young wife knew where his treasure was hidden.
"No," says Blackbeard; "nobody but the devil and I knows where it is,
and the longest liver shall have all."

As for that poor young wife of his, the life that he and his rum-crazy
shipmates led her was too terrible to be told.

For a time Blackbeard worked at his trade down on the Spanish Main,
gathering, in the few years he was there, a very neat little fortune in
the booty captured from sundry vessels; but by and by he took it into
his head to try his luck along the coast of the Carolinas; so off
he sailed to the northward, with quite a respectable little fleet,
consisting of his own vessel and two captured sloops. From that time he
was actively engaged in the making of American history in his small way.

He first appeared off the bar of Charleston Harbor, to the no small
excitement of the worthy town of that ilk, and there he lay for five
or six days, blockading the port, and stopping incoming and outgoing
vessels at his pleasure, so that, for the time, the commerce of the
province was entirely paralyzed. All the vessels so stopped he held as
prizes, and all the crews and passengers (among the latter of whom was
more than one provincial worthy of the day) he retained as though they
were prisoners of war.

And it was a mightily awkward thing for the good folk of Charleston to
behold day after day a black flag with its white skull and crossbones
fluttering at the fore of the pirate captain's craft, over across the
level stretch of green salt marshes; and it was mightily unpleasant,
too, to know that this or that prominent citizen was crowded down with
the other prisoners under the hatches.

One morning Captain Blackbeard finds that his stock of medicine is low.
"Tut!" says he, "we'll turn no hair gray for that." So up he calls the
bold Captain Richards, the commander of his consort the Revenge sloop,
and bids him take Mr. Marks (one of his prisoners), and go up to
Charleston and get the medicine. There was no task that suited our
Captain Richards better than that. Up to the town he rowed, as bold as
brass. "Look ye," says he to the governor, rolling his quid of tobacco
from one cheek to another--"look ye, we're after this and that, and if
we don't get it, why, I'll tell you plain, we'll burn them bloody crafts
of yours that we've took over yonder, and cut the weasand of every
clodpoll aboard of 'em."

There was no answering an argument of such force as this, and the
worshipful governor and the good folk of Charleston knew very well
that Blackbeard and his crew were the men to do as they promised. So
Blackbeard got his medicine, and though it cost the colony two thousand
dollars, it was worth that much to the town to be quit of him.

They say that while Captain Richards was conducting his negotiations
with the governor his boat's crew were stumping around the streets of
the town, having a glorious time of it, while the good folk glowered
wrathfully at them, but dared venture nothing in speech or act.

Having gained a booty of between seven and eight thousand dollars from
the prizes captured, the pirates sailed away from Charleston Harbor to
the coast of North Carolina.

And now Blackbeard, following the plan adopted by so many others of his
kind, began to cudgel his brains for means to cheat his fellows out of
their share of the booty.

At Topsail Inlet he ran his own vessel aground, as though by accident.
Hands, the captain of one of the consorts, pretending to come to his
assistance, also grounded HIS sloop. Nothing now remained but for those
who were able to get away in the other craft, which was all that was
now left of the little fleet. This did Blackbeard with some forty of his
favorites. The rest of the pirates were left on the sand spit to await
the return of their companions--which never happened.

As for Blackbeard and those who were with him, they were that much
richer, for there were so many the fewer pockets to fill. But even yet
there were too many to share the booty, in Blackbeard's opinion, and so
he marooned a parcel more of them--some eighteen or twenty--upon a naked
sand bank, from which they were afterward mercifully rescued by another
freebooter who chanced that way--a certain Major Stede Bonnet, of whom
more will presently be said. About that time a royal proclamation had
been issued offering pardon to all pirates in arms who would surrender
to the king's authority before a given date. So up goes Master
Blackbeard to the Governor of North Carolina and makes his neck safe by
surrendering to the proclamation--albeit he kept tight clutch upon what
he had already gained.

And now we find our bold Captain Blackbeard established in the good
province of North Carolina, where he and His Worship the Governor struck
up a vast deal of intimacy, as profitable as it was pleasant. There is
something very pretty in the thought of the bold sea rover giving up his
adventurous life (excepting now and then an excursion against a trader
or two in the neighboring sound, when the need of money was pressing);
settling quietly down into the routine of old colonial life, with a
young wife of sixteen at his side, who made the fourteenth that he had
in various ports here and there in the world.

Becoming tired of an inactive life, Blackbeard afterward resumed his
piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds
of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to
say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. So
they sent a deputation up to the Governor of Virginia asking if he would
be pleased to help them in their trouble.

There were two men-of-war lying at Kicquetan, in the James River, at the
time. To them the Governor of Virginia applies, and plucky Lieutenant
Maynard, of the Pearl, was sent to Ocracoke Inlet to fight this pirate
who ruled it down there so like the cock of a walk. There he found
Blackbeard waiting for him, and as ready for a fight as ever the
lieutenant himself could be. Fight they did, and while it lasted it
was as pretty a piece of business of its kind as one could wish to
see. Blackbeard drained a glass of grog, wishing the lieutenant luck
in getting aboard of him, fired a broadside, blew some twenty of the
lieutenant's men out of existence, and totally crippled one of his
little sloops for the balance of the fight. After that, and under cover
of the smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other sloop, and then
followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict betwixt him and the
lieutenant. First they fired their pistols, and then they took to it
with cutlasses--right, left, up and down, cut and slash--until the
lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the hilt. Then Blackbeard would
have finished him off handsomely, only up steps one of the lieutenant's
men and fetches him a great slash over the neck, so that the lieutenant
came off with no more hurt than a cut across the knuckles.

At the very first discharge of their pistols Blackbeard had been shot
through the body, but he was not for giving up for that--not he. As said
before, he was of the true roaring, raging breed of pirates, and stood
up to it until he received twenty more cutlass cuts and five additional
shots, and then fell dead while trying to fire off an empty pistol.
After that the lieutenant cut off the pirate's head, and sailed away in
triumph, with the bloody trophy nailed to the bow of his battered sloop.

Those of Blackbeard's men who were not killed were carried off to
Virginia, and all of them tried and hanged but one or two, their names,
no doubt, still standing in a row in the provincial records.

But did Blackbeard really bury treasures, as tradition says, along the
sandy shores he haunted?

Master Clement Downing, midshipman aboard the Salisbury, wrote a book
after his return from the cruise to Madagascar, whither the Salisbury
had been ordered, to put an end to the piracy with which those waters
were infested. He says:

"At Guzarat I met with a Portuguese named Anthony de Sylvestre; he came
with two other Portuguese and two Dutchmen to take on in the Moor's
service, as many Europeans do. This Anthony told me he had been among
the pirates, and that he belonged to one of the sloops in Virginia when
Blackbeard was taken. He informed me that if it should be my lot ever
to go to York River or Maryland, near an island called Mulberry Island,
provided we went on shore at the watering place, where the shipping used
most commonly to ride, that there the pirates had buried considerable
sums of money in great chests well clamped with iron plates. As to my
part, I never was that way, nor much acquainted with any that ever used
those parts; but I have made inquiry, and am informed that there is such
a place as Mulberry Island. If any person who uses those parts should
think it worth while to dig a little way at the upper end of a small
cove, where it is convenient to land, he would soon find whether the
information I had was well grounded. Fronting the landing place are five
trees, among which, he said, the money was hid. I cannot warrant the
truth of this account; but if I was ever to go there, I should find some
means or other to satisfy myself, as it could not be a great deal out
of my way. If anybody should obtain the benefit of this account, if it
please God that they ever come to England, 'tis hoped they will remember
whence they had this information."

Another worthy was Capt. Edward Low, who learned his trade of
sail-making at good old Boston town, and piracy at Honduras. No one
stood higher in the trade than he, and no one mounted to more lofty
altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'Tis strange that
so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as
worthy of story and of song as was Blackbeard.

It was under a Yankee captain that he made his first cruise--down to
Honduras, for a cargo of logwood, which in those times was no better
than stolen from the Spanish folk.

One day, lying off the shore, in the Gulf of Honduras, comes Master Low
and the crew of the whaleboat rowing across from the beach, where they
had been all morning chopping logwood.

"What are you after?" says the captain, for they were coming back with
nothing but themselves in the boat.

"We're after our dinner," says Low, as spokesman of the party.

"You'll have no dinner," says the captain, "until you fetch off another
load."

"Dinner or no dinner, we'll pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with
a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

Luckily the gun hung fire, and the Yankee captain was spared to steal
logwood a while longer.

All the same, that was no place for Ned Low to make a longer stay, so
off he and his messmates rowed in a whaleboat, captured a brig out at
sea, and turned pirates.

He presently fell in with the notorious Captain Lowther, a fellow after
his own kidney, who put the finishing touches to his education and
taught him what wickedness he did not already know.

And so he became a master pirate, and a famous hand at his craft, and
thereafter forever bore an inveterate hatred of all Yankees because of
the dinner he had lost, and never failed to smite whatever one of
them luck put within his reach. Once he fell in with a ship off South
Carolina--the Amsterdam Merchant, Captain Williamson, commander--a
Yankee craft and a Yankee master. He slit the nose and cropped the ears
of the captain, and then sailed merrily away, feeling the better for
having marred a Yankee.

New York and New England had more than one visit from the doughty
captain, each of which visits they had good cause to remember, for he
made them smart for it.

Along in the year 1722 thirteen vessels were riding at anchor in front
of the good town of Marblehead. Into the harbor sailed a strange craft.
"Who is she?" say the townsfolk, for the coming of a new vessel was no
small matter in those days.

Who the strangers were was not long a matter of doubt. Up goes the black
flag, and the skull and crossbones to the fore.

"'Tis the bloody Low," say one and all; and straightway all was flutter
and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and strikes in the
midst.

It was a glorious thing for our captain, for here were thirteen Yankee
crafts at one and the same time. So he took what he wanted, and then
sailed away, and it was many a day before Marblehead forgot that visit.

Some time after this he and his consort fell foul of an English sloop
of war, the Greyhound, whereby they were so roughly handled that Low was
glad enough to slip away, leaving his consort and her crew behind him,
as a sop to the powers of law and order. And lucky for them if no worse
fate awaited them than to walk the dreadful plank with a bandage around
the blinded eyes and a rope around the elbows. So the consort was taken,
and the crew tried and hanged in chains, and Low sailed off in as pretty
a bit of rage as ever a pirate fell into.

The end of this worthy is lost in the fogs of the past: some say that he
died of a yellow fever down in New Orleans; it was not at the end of a
hempen cord, more's the pity.

Here fittingly with our strictly American pirates should stand Major
Stede Bonnet along with the rest. But in truth he was only a poor
half-and-half fellow of his kind, and even after his hand was fairly
turned to the business he had undertaken, a qualm of conscience would
now and then come across him, and he would make vast promises to
forswear his evil courses.

However, he jogged along in his course of piracy snugly enough until he
fell foul of the gallant Colonel Rhett, off Charleston Harbor, whereupon
his luck and his courage both were suddenly snuffed out with a puff of
powder smoke and a good rattling broadside. Down came the "Black Roger"
with its skull and crossbones from the fore, and Colonel Rhett had the
glory of fetching back as pretty a cargo of scoundrels and cutthroats as
the town ever saw.

After the next assizes they were strung up, all in a row--evil apples
ready for the roasting.

"Ned" England was a fellow of different blood--only he snapped his whip
across the back of society over in the East Indies and along the hot
shores of Hindustan.

The name of Capt. Howel Davis stands high among his fellows. He was the
Ulysses of pirates, the beloved not only of Mercury, but of Minerva.

He it was who hoodwinked the captain of a French ship of double the size
and strength of his own, and fairly cheated him into the surrender of
his craft without the firing of a single pistol or the striking of a
single blow; he it was who sailed boldly into the port of Gambia, on the
coast of Guinea, and under the guns of the castle, proclaiming himself
as a merchant trading for slaves.

The cheat was kept up until the fruit of mischief was ripe for the
picking; then, when the governor and the guards of the castle were
lulled into entire security, and when Davis's band was scattered about
wherever each man could do the most good, it was out pistol, up cutlass,
and death if a finger moved. They tied the soldiers back to back, and
the governor to his own armchair, and then rifled wherever it pleased
them. After that they sailed away, and though they had not made the
fortune they had hoped to glean, it was a good snug round sum that they
shared among them.

Their courage growing high with success, they determined to attempt the
island of Del Principe--a prosperous Portuguese settlement on the
coast. The plan for taking the place was cleverly laid, and would have
succeeded, only that a Portuguese negro among the pirate crew turned
traitor and carried the news ashore to the governor of the fort.
Accordingly, the next day, when Captain Davis came ashore, he found
there a good strong guard drawn up as though to honor his coming. But
after he and those with him were fairly out of their boat, and well away
from the water side, there was a sudden rattle of musketry, a cloud of
smoke, and a dull groan or two. Only one man ran out from under that
pungent cloud, jumped into the boat, and rowed away; and when it lifted,
there lay Captain Davis and his companions all of a heap, like a pile of
old clothes.

Capt. Bartholomew Roberts was the particular and especial pupil
of Davis, and when that worthy met his death so suddenly and so
unexpectedly in the unfortunate manner above narrated, he was chosen
unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of
a worthy master. Many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that this
sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were they
plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold upon them.

"He made a gallant figure," says the old narrator, "being dressed in a
rich crimson waistcoat and breeches and red feather in his hat, a gold
chain around his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in
his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling
flung over his shoulders according to the fashion of the pyrates."
Thus he appeared in the last engagement which he fought--that with the
Swallow--a royal sloop of war. A gallant fight they made of it, those
bulldog pirates, for, finding themselves caught in a trap betwixt the
man-of-war and the shore, they determined to bear down upon the king's
vessel, fire a slapping broadside into her, and then try to get away,
trusting to luck in the doing, and hoping that their enemy might be
crippled by their fire.

Captain Roberts himself was the first to fall at the return fire of the
Swallow; a grapeshot struck him in the neck, and he fell forward across
the gun near to which he was standing at the time. A certain fellow
named Stevenson, who was at the helm, saw him fall, and thought he was
wounded. At the lifting of the arm the body rolled over upon the deck,
and the man saw that the captain was dead. "Whereupon," says the old
history, "he" [Stevenson] "gushed into tears, and wished that the next
shot might be his portion." After their captain's death the pirate crew
had no stomach for more fighting; the "Black Roger" was struck, and one
and all surrendered to justice and the gallows.

Such is a brief and bald account of the most famous of these pirates.
But they are only a few of a long list of notables, such as Captain
Martel, Capt. Charles Vane (who led the gallant Colonel Rhett, of South
Carolina, such a wild-goose chase in and out among the sluggish creeks
and inlets along the coast), Capt. John Rackam, and Captain Anstis,
Captain Worley, and Evans, and Philips, and others--a score or more of
wild fellows whose very names made ship captains tremble in their shoes
in those good old times.

And such is that black chapter of history of the past--an evil chapter,
lurid with cruelty and suffering, stained with blood and smoke. Yet
it is a written chapter, and it must be read. He who chooses may
read betwixt the lines of history this great truth: Evil itself is an
instrument toward the shaping of good. Therefore the history of evil as
well as the history of good should be read, considered, and digested.




Chapter II. THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND

IT is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man
because of something that his grandfather may have done amiss, but the
world, which is never overnice in its discrimination as to where to lay
the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer in the place of
the guilty.

Barnaby True was a good, honest, biddable lad, as boys go, but yet he
was not ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had
been that very famous pirate, Capt. William Brand, who, after so many
marvelous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and
ballads that were written about him), was murdered in Jamaica by Capt.
John Malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the Adventure galley.

It has never been denied, that ever I heard, that up to the time of
Captain Brand's being commissioned against the South Sea pirates he had
always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea captain as could be.

When he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the Royal
Sovereign, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of New York.
The governor himself had subscribed to the adventure, and had himself
signed Captain Brand's commission. So, if the unfortunate man went
astray, he must have had great temptation to do so, many others behaving
no better when the opportunity offered in those far-away seas where so
many rich purchases might very easily be taken and no one the wiser.

To be sure, those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most
wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why, God knows he suffered and
paid for it, for he laid his bones in Jamaica, and never saw his home
or his wife and daughter again after he had sailed away on the Royal
Sovereign on that long misfortunate voyage, leaving them in New York to
the care of strangers.

At the time when he met his fate in Port Royal Harbor he had obtained
two vessels under his command--the Royal Sovereign, which was the boat
fitted out for him in New York, and the Adventure galley, which he was
said to have taken somewhere in the South Seas. With these he lay in
those waters of Jamaica for over a month after his return from the
coasts of Africa, waiting for news from home, which, when it came, was
of the very blackest; for the colonial authorities were at that time
stirred up very hot against him to take him and hang him for a pirate,
so as to clear their own skirts for having to do with such a fellow. So
maybe it seemed better to our captain to hide his ill-gotten treasure
there in those far-away parts, and afterward to try and bargain with it
for his life when he should reach New York, rather than to sail straight
for the Americas with what he had earned by his piracies, and so risk
losing life and money both.

However that might be, the story was that Captain Brand and his gunner,
and Captain Malyoe of the Adventure and the sailing master of the
Adventure all went ashore together with a chest of money (no one of them
choosing to trust the other three in so nice an affair), and buried the
treasure somewhere on the beach of Port Royal Harbor. The story then has
it that they fell a-quarreling about a future division or the money,
and that, as a wind-up to the affair, Captain Malyoe shot Captain Brand
through the head, while the sailing master of the Adventure served the
gunner of the Royal Sovereign after the same fashion through the body,
and that the murderers then went away, leaving the two stretched out
in their own blood on the sand in the staring sun, with no one to know
where the money was hid but they two who had served their comrades so.

It is a mighty great pity that anyone should have a grandfather who
ended his days in such a sort as this, but it was no fault of Barnaby
True's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he
was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned
pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical end.
Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of
calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that
famous catchpenny song beginning thus:

     Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
     A-sailing,
     And a-sailing;
     Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
     A-sailing free.
     Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
     And I sinned by sea and land,
     For I broke God's just command,
     A-sailing free.

'Twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so misfortunate a man, and
oftentimes little Barnaby True would double up his fists and would fight
his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home with a
bloody nose to have his poor mother cry over him and grieve for him.

Not that his days were all of teasing and torment, neither; for if his
comrades did treat him so, why, then, there were other times when he
and they were as great friends as could be, and would go in swimming
together where there was a bit of sandy strand along the East River
above Fort George, and that in the most amicable fashion. Or, maybe
the very next day after he had fought so with his fellows, he would go
a-rambling with them up the Bowerie Road, perhaps to help them steal
cherries from some old Dutch farmer, forgetting in such adventure what a
thief his own grandfather had been.

Well, when Barnaby True was between sixteen and seventeen years old he
was taken into employment in the countinghouse of Mr. Roger Hartright,
the well-known West India merchant, and Barnaby's own stepfather.

It was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for
Barnaby in the countinghouse, but advanced him so fast that against our
hero was twenty-one years old he had made four voyages as supercargo to
the West Indies in Mr. Hartright's ship, the Belle Helen, and soon after
he was twenty-one undertook a fifth. Nor was it in any such subordinate
position as mere supercargo that he acted, but rather as the
confidential agent of Mr. Hartright, who, having no children of his
own, was very jealous to advance our hero into a position of trust and
responsibility in the countinghouse, as though he were indeed a son, so
that even the captain of the ship had scarcely more consideration aboard
than he, young as he was in years.

As for the agents and correspondents of Mr. Hartright throughout these
parts, they also, knowing how the good man had adopted his interests,
were very polite and obliging to Master Barnaby--especially, be it
mentioned, Mr. Ambrose Greenfield, of Kingston, Jamaica, who, upon the
occasions of his visits to those parts, did all that he could to make
Barnaby's stay in that town agreeable and pleasant to him.

So much for the history of our hero to the time of the beginning of this
story, without which you shall hardly be able to understand the purport
of those most extraordinary adventures that befell him shortly after he
came of age, nor the logic of their consequence after they had occurred.

For it was during his fifth voyage to the West Indies that the first of
those extraordinary adventures happened of which I shall have presently
to tell.

At that time he had been in Kingston for the best part of four weeks,
lodging at the house of a very decent, respectable widow, by name Mrs.
Anne Bolles, who, with three pleasant and agreeable daughters, kept a
very clean and well-served lodging house in the outskirts of the town.

One morning, as our hero sat sipping his coffee, clad only in loose
cotton drawers, a shirt, and a jacket, and with slippers upon his feet,
as is the custom in that country, where everyone endeavors to keep as
cool as may be while he sat thus sipping his coffee Miss Eliza, the
youngest of the three daughters, came and gave him a note, which,
she said, a stranger had just handed in at the door, going away again
without waiting for a reply. You may judge of Barnaby's surprise when he
opened the note and read as follows:

     MR.  BARNABY TRUE.

     SIR,--Though you don't know me, I know you, and I tell you
     this: if you will be at Pratt's Ordinary on Harbor Street
     on Friday next at eight o'clock of the evening, and will
     accompany the man who shall say to you, "The Royal Sovereign
     is come in," you shall learn something the most to your
     advantage that ever befell you. Sir, keep this note, and
     show it to him who shall address these words to you, so to
     certify that you are the man he seeks.

Such was the wording of the note, which was without address, and without
any superscription whatever.

The first emotion that stirred Barnaby was one of extreme and profound
amazement. Then the thought came into his mind that some witty fellow,
of whom he knew a good many in that town--and wild, waggish pranks they
were was attempting to play off some smart jest upon him. But all
that Miss Eliza could tell him when he questioned her concerning the
messenger was that the bearer of the note was a tall, stout man, with
a red neckerchief around his neck and copper buckles to his shoes, and
that he had the appearance of a sailorman, having a great big queue
hanging down his back. But, Lord! what was such a description as that
in a busy seaport town, full of scores of men to fit such a likeness?
Accordingly, our hero put away the note into his wallet, determining to
show it to his good friend Mr. Greenfield that evening, and to ask his
advice upon it. So he did show it, and that gentleman's opinion was the
same as his--that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and
that the matter of the letter was all nothing but smoke.

Nevertheless, though Barnaby was thus confirmed in his opinion as to the
nature of the communication he had received, he yet determined in his
own mind that he would see the business through to the end, and would be
at Pratt's Ordinary, as the note demanded, upon the day and at the time
specified therein.

Pratt's Ordinary was at that time a very fine and well-known place of
its sort, with good tobacco and the best rum that ever I tasted, and had
a garden behind it that, sloping down to the harbor front, was planted
pretty thick with palms and ferns grouped into clusters with flowers and
plants. Here were a number of little tables, some in little grottoes,
like our Vauxhall in New York, and with red and blue and white paper
lanterns hung among the foliage, whither gentlemen and ladies used
sometimes to go of an evening to sit and drink lime juice and sugar and
water (and sometimes a taste of something stronger), and to look out
across the water at the shipping in the cool of the night.

Thither, accordingly, our hero went, a little before the time appointed
in the note, and passing directly through the Ordinary and the garden
beyond, chose a table at the lower end of the garden and close to the
water's edge, where he would not be easily seen by anyone coming into
the place. Then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he
composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom
he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank
and to enjoy his confusion.

The spot was pleasant enough; for the land breeze, blowing strong and
full, set the leaves of the palm tree above his head to rattling and
clattering continually against the sky, where, the moon then being about
full, they shone every now and then like blades of steel. The waves also
were splashing up against the little landing place at the foot of the
garden, sounding very cool in the night, and sparkling all over the
harbor where the moon caught the edges of the water. A great many
vessels were lying at anchor in their ridings, with the dark, prodigious
form of a man-of-war looming up above them in the moonlight.

There our hero sat for the best part of an hour, smoking his pipe of
tobacco and sipping his grog, and seeing not so much as a single thing
that might concern the note he had received.

It was not far from half an hour after the time appointed in the note,
when a rowboat came suddenly out of the night and pulled up to the
landing place at the foot of the garden above mentioned, and three
or four men came ashore in the darkness. Without saying a word among
themselves they chose a near-by table and, sitting down, ordered rum
and water, and began drinking their grog in silence. They might have
sat there about five minutes, when, by and by, Barnaby True became aware
that they were observing him very curiously; and then almost immediately
one, who was plainly the leader of the party, called out to him:

"How now, messmate! Won't you come and drink a dram of rum with us?"

"Why, no," says Barnaby, answering very civilly; "I have drunk enough
already, and more would only heat my blood."

"All the same," quoth the stranger, "I think you will come and drink
with us; for, unless I am mistook, you are Mr. Barnaby True, and I am
come here to tell you that the Royal Sovereign is come in."

Now I may honestly say that Barnaby True was never more struck aback in
all his life than he was at hearing these words uttered in so unexpected
a manner. He had been looking to hear them under such different
circumstances that, now that his ears heard them addressed to him, and
that so seriously, by a perfect stranger, who, with others, had thus
mysteriously come ashore out of the darkness, he could scarce believe
that his ears heard aright. His heart suddenly began beating at a
tremendous rate, and had he been an older and wiser man, I do believe
he would have declined the adventure, instead of leaping blindly, as
he did, into that of which he could see neither the beginning nor the
ending. But being barely one-and-twenty years of age, and having an
adventurous disposition that would have carried him into almost anything
that possessed a smack of uncertainty or danger about it, he contrived
to say, in a pretty easy tone (though God knows how it was put on for
the occasion):

"Well, then, if that be so, and if the Royal Sovereign is indeed
come in, why, I'll join you, since you are so kind as to ask me." And
therewith he went across to the other table, carrying his pipe with him,
and sat down and began smoking, with all the appearance of ease he could
assume upon the occasion.

"Well, Mr. Barnaby True," said the man who had before addressed him, so
soon as Barnaby had settled himself, speaking in a low tone of voice,
so there would be no danger of any others hearing the words--"Well, Mr.
Barnaby True--for I shall call you by your name, to show you that though
I know you, you don't know me I am glad to see that you are man enough
to enter thus into an affair, though you can't see to the bottom of it.
For it shows me that you are a man of mettle, and are deserving of the
fortune that is to befall you to-night. Nevertheless, first of all, I
am bid to say that you must show me a piece of paper that you have about
you before we go a step farther."

"Very well," said Barnaby; "I have it here safe and sound, and see
it you shall." And thereupon and without more ado he fetched out his
wallet, opened it, and handed his interlocutor the mysterious note he
had received the day or two before. Whereupon the other, drawing to him
the candle, burning there for the convenience of those who would smoke
tobacco, began immediately reading it.

This gave Barnaby True a moment or two to look at him. He was a tall,
stout man, with a red handkerchief tied around his neck, and with copper
buckles on his shoes, so that Barnaby True could not but wonder whether
he was not the very same man who had given the note to Miss Eliza Bolles
at the door of his lodging house.

"'Tis all right and straight as it should be," the other said, after he
had so glanced his eyes over the note. "And now that the paper is read"
(suiting his action to his words), "I'll just burn it, for safety's
sake."

And so he did, twisting it up and setting it to the flame of the candle.

"And now," he said, continuing his address, "I'll tell you what I am
here for. I was sent to ask you if you're man enough to take your life
in your own hands and to go with me in that boat down there? Say 'Yes,'
and we'll start away without wasting more time, for the devil is ashore
here at Jamaica--though you don't know what that means--and if he gets
ahead of us, why, then we may whistle for what we are after. Say 'No,'
and I go away again, and I promise you you shall never be troubled again
in this sort. So now speak up plain, young gentleman, and tell us
what is your mind in this business, and whether you will adventure any
farther or not."

If our hero hesitated it was not for long. I cannot say that his courage
did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, I say, not for long,
and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as could be.

"To be sure I'm man enough to go with you," he said; "and if you mean
me any harm I can look out for myself; and if I can't, why, here is
something can look out for me," and therewith he lifted up the flap of
his coat pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with him
when he had set out from his lodging house that evening.

At this the other burst out a-laughing. "Come," says he, "you are indeed
of right mettle, and I like your spirit. All the same, no one in all the
world means you less ill than I, and so, if you have to use that barker,
'twill not be upon us who are your friends, but only upon one who is
more wicked than the devil himself. So come, and let us get away."

Thereupon he and the others, who had not spoken a single word for all
this time, rose from the table, and he having paid the scores of all,
they all went down together to the boat that still lay at the landing
place at the bottom of the garden.

Thus coming to it, our hero could see that it was a large yawl boat
manned with half a score of black men for rowers, and there were two
lanterns in the stern sheets, and three or four iron shovels.

The man who had conducted the conversation with Barnaby True for all
this time, and who was, as has been said, plainly the captain of the
party, stepped immediately down into the boat; our hero followed, and
the others followed after him; and instantly they were seated the boat
was shoved off and the black men began pulling straight out into the
harbor, and so, at some distance away, around under the stern of the
man-of-war.

Not a word was spoken after they had thus left the shore, and presently
they might all have been ghosts, for the silence of the party. Barnaby
True was too full of his own thoughts to talk--and serious enough
thoughts they were by this time, with crimps to trepan a man at every
turn, and press gangs to carry a man off so that he might never be heard
of again. As for the others, they did not seem to choose to say anything
now that they had him fairly embarked upon their enterprise.

And so the crew pulled on in perfect silence for the best part of an
hour, the leader of the expedition directing the course of the boat
straight across the harbor, as though toward the mouth of the Rio Cobra
River. Indeed, this was their destination, as Barnaby could after a
while see, by the low point of land with a great long row of coconut
palms upon it (the appearance of which he knew very well), which by and
by began to loom up out of the milky dimness of the moonlight. As they
approached the river they found the tide was running strong out of
it, so that some distance away from the stream it gurgled and rippled
alongside the boat as the crew of black men pulled strongly against
it. Thus they came up under what was either a point of land or an islet
covered with a thick growth of mangrove trees. But still no one spoke a
single word as to their destination, or what was the business they had
in hand.

The night, now that they were close to the shore, was loud with the
noise of running tide-water, and the air was heavy with the smell of mud
and marsh, and over all the whiteness of the moonlight, with a few stars
pricking out here and there in the sky; and all so strange and silent
and mysterious that Barnaby could not divest himself of the feeling that
it was all a dream.

So, the rowers bending to the oars, the boat came slowly around from
under the clump of mangrove bushes and out into the open water again.

Instantly it did so the leader of the expedition called out in a sharp
voice, and the black men instantly lay on their oars.

Almost at the same instant Barnaby True became aware that there was
another boat coming down the river toward where they lay, now drifting
with the strong tide out into the harbor again, and he knew that it was
because of the approach of that boat that the other had called upon his
men to cease rowing.

The other boat, as well as he could see in the distance, was full of
men, some of whom appeared to be armed, for even in the dusk of the
darkness the shine of the moonlight glimmered sharply now and then on
the barrels of muskets or pistols, and in the silence that followed
after their own rowing had ceased Barnaby True could hear the chug!
chug! of the oars sounding louder and louder through the watery
stillness of the night as the boat drew nearer and nearer. But he knew
nothing of what it all meant, nor whether these others were friends or
enemies, or what was to happen next.

The oarsmen of the approaching boat did not for a moment cease
their rowing, not till they had come pretty close to Barnaby and his
companions. Then a man who sat in the stern ordered them to cease
rowing, and as they lay on their oars he stood up. As they passed by,
Barnaby True could see him very plain, the moonlight shining full upon
him--a large, stout gentleman with a round red face, and clad in a fine
laced coat of red cloth. Amidship of the boat was a box or chest about
the bigness of a middle-sized traveling trunk, but covered all over
with cakes of sand and dirt. In the act of passing, the gentleman, still
standing, pointed at it with an elegant gold-headed cane which he held
in his hand. "Are you come after this, Abraham Dawling?" says he, and
thereat his countenance broke into as evil, malignant a grin as ever
Barnaby True saw in all of his life.

The other did not immediately reply so much as a single word, but sat
as still as any stone. Then, at last, the other boat having gone by, he
suddenly appeared to regain his wits, for he bawled out after it, "Very
well, Jack Malyoe! very well, Jack Malyoe! you've got ahead of us this
time again, but next time is the third, and then it shall be our turn,
even if William Brand must come back from hell to settle with you."

This he shouted out as the other boat passed farther and farther away,
but to it my fine gentleman made no reply except to burst out into a
great roaring fit of laughter.

There was another man among the armed men in the stern of the passing
boat--a villainous, lean man with lantern jaws, and the top of his head
as bald as the palm of my hand. As the boat went away into the night
with the tide and the headway the oars had given it, he grinned so that
the moonlight shone white on his big teeth. Then, flourishing a great
big pistol, he said, and Barnaby could hear every word he spoke, "Do but
give me the word, Your Honor, and I'll put another bullet through the
son of a sea cook."

But the gentleman said some words to forbid him, and therewith the boat
was gone away into the night, and presently Barnaby could hear that
the men at the oars had begun rowing again, leaving them lying there,
without a single word being said for a long time.

By and by one of those in Barnaby's boat spoke up. "Where shall you go
now?" he said.

At this the leader of the expedition appeared suddenly to come back to
himself, and to find his voice again. "Go?" he roared out. "Go to the
devil! Go? Go where you choose! Go? Go back again--that's where we'll
go!" and therewith he fell a-cursing and swearing until he foamed at
the lips, as though he had gone clean crazy, while the black men began
rowing back again across the harbor as fast as ever they could lay oars
into the water.

They put Barnaby True ashore below the old custom house; but so
bewildered and shaken was he by all that had happened, and by what he
had seen, and by the names that he heard spoken, that he was scarcely
conscious of any of the familiar things among which he found himself
thus standing. And so he walked up the moonlit street toward his lodging
like one drunk or bewildered; for "John Malyoe" was the name of
the captain of the Adventure galley--he who had shot Barnaby's own
grandfather--and "Abraham Dawling" was the name of the gunner of the
Royal Sovereign who had been shot at the same time with the pirate
captain, and who, with him, had been left stretched out in the staring
sun by the murderers.

The whole business had occupied hardly two hours, but it was as though
that time was no part of Barnaby's life, but all a part of some other
life, so dark and strange and mysterious that it in no wise belonged to
him.

As for that box covered all over with mud, he could only guess at that
time what it contained and what the finding of it signified.

But of this our hero said nothing to anyone, nor did he tell a single
living soul what he had seen that night, but nursed it in his own mind,
where it lay so big for a while that he could think of little or nothing
else for days after.

Mr. Greenfield, Mr. Hartright's correspondent and agent in these parts,
lived in a fine brick house just out of the town, on the Mona Road,
his family consisting of a wife and two daughters--brisk, lively young
ladies with black hair and eyes, and very fine bright teeth that shone
whenever they laughed, and with a plenty to say for themselves. Thither
Barnaby True was often asked to a family dinner; and, indeed, it was a
pleasant home to visit, and to sit upon the veranda and smoke a cigarro
with the good old gentleman and look out toward the mountains, while the
young ladies laughed and talked, or played upon the guitar and sang. And
oftentimes so it was strongly upon Barnaby's mind to speak to the good
gentleman and tell him what he had beheld that night out in the harbor;
but always he would think better of it and hold his peace, falling to
thinking, and smoking away upon his cigarro at a great rate.

A day or two before the Belle Helen sailed from Kingston Mr. Greenfield
stopped Barnaby True as he was going through the office to bid him to
come to dinner that night (for there within the tropics they breakfast
at eleven o'clock and take dinner in the cool of the evening, because of
the heat, and not at midday, as we do in more temperate latitudes). "I
would have you meet," says Mr. Greenfield, "your chief passenger for
New York, and his granddaughter, for whom the state cabin and the two
staterooms are to be fitted as here ordered [showing a letter]--Sir John
Malyoe and Miss Marjorie Malyoe. Did you ever hear tell of Capt. Jack
Malyoe, Master Barnaby?"

Now I do believe that Mr. Greenfield had no notion at all that old
Captain Brand was Barnaby True's own grandfather and Capt. John Malyoe
his murderer, but when he so thrust at him the name of that man, what
with that in itself and the late adventure through which he himself had
just passed, and with his brooding upon it until it was so prodigiously
big in his mind, it was like hitting him a blow to so fling the
questions at him. Nevertheless, he was able to reply, with a pretty
straight face, that he had heard of Captain Malyoe and who he was.

"Well," says Mr. Greenfield, "if Jack Malyoe was a desperate pirate and
a wild, reckless blade twenty years ago, why, he is Sir John Malyoe now
and the owner of a fine estate in Devonshire. Well, Master Barnaby, when
one is a baronet and come into the inheritance of a fine estate (though
I do hear it is vastly cumbered with debts), the world will wink its eye
to much that he may have done twenty years ago. I do hear say, though,
that his own kin still turn the cold shoulder to him."

To this address Barnaby answered nothing, but sat smoking away at his
cigarro at a great rate.

And so that night Barnaby True came face to face for the first time with
the man who murdered his own grandfather--the greatest beast of a man
that ever he met in all of his life.

That time in the harbor he had seen Sir John Malyoe at a distance and
in the darkness; now that he beheld him near by it seemed to him that he
had never looked at a more evil face in all his life. Not that the man
was altogether ugly, for he had a good nose and a fine double chin; but
his eyes stood out like balls and were red and watery, and he winked
them continually, as though they were always smarting; and his lips
were thick and purple-red, and his fat, red cheeks were mottled here
and there with little clots of purple veins; and when he spoke his voice
rattled so in his throat that it made one wish to clear one's own throat
to listen to him. So, what with a pair of fat, white hands, and that
hoarse voice, and his swollen face, and his thick lips sticking out, it
seemed to Barnaby True he had never seen a countenance so distasteful to
him as that one into which he then looked.

But if Sir John Malyoe was so displeasing to our hero's taste, why, the
granddaughter, even this first time he beheld her, seemed to him to be
the most beautiful, lovely young lady that ever he saw. She had a thin,
fair skin, red lips, and yellow hair--though it was then powdered pretty
white for the occasion--and the bluest eyes that Barnaby beheld in all
of his life. A sweet, timid creature, who seemed not to dare so much as
to speak a word for herself without looking to Sir John for leave to do
so, and would shrink and shudder whenever he would speak of a sudden to
her or direct a sudden glance upon her. When she did speak, it was in so
low a voice that one had to bend his head to hear her, and even if she
smiled would catch herself and look up as though to see if she had leave
to be cheerful.

As for Sir John, he sat at dinner like a pig, and gobbled and ate and
drank, smacking his lips all the while, but with hardly a word to either
her or Mrs. Greenfield or to Barnaby True; but with a sour, sullen air,
as though he would say, "Your damned victuals and drink are no better
than they should be, but I must eat 'em or nothing." A great bloated
beast of a man!

Only after dinner was over and the young lady and the two misses sat off
in a corner together did Barnaby hear her talk with any ease. Then, to
be sure, her tongue became loose, and she prattled away at a great rate,
though hardly above her breath, until of a sudden her grandfather called
out, in his hoarse, rattling voice, that it was time to go. Whereupon
she stopped short in what she was saying and jumped up from her chair,
looking as frightened as though she had been caught in something amiss,
and was to be punished for it.

Barnaby True and Mr. Greenfield both went out to see the two into their
coach, where Sir John's man stood holding the lantern. And who should
he be, to be sure, but that same lean villain with bald head who had
offered to shoot the leader of our hero's expedition out on the harbor
that night! For, one of the circles of light from the lantern shining
up into his face, Barnaby True knew him the moment he clapped eyes upon
him. Though he could not have recognized our hero, he grinned at him in
the most impudent, familiar fashion, and never so much as touched his
hat either to him or to Mr. Greenfield; but as soon as his master
and his young mistress had entered the coach, banged to the door and
scrambled up on the seat alongside the driver, and so away without a
word, but with another impudent grin, this time favoring both Barnaby
and the old gentleman.

Such were these two, master and man, and what Barnaby saw of them then
was only confirmed by further observation--the most hateful couple he
ever knew; though, God knows, what they afterward suffered should wipe
out all complaint against them.

The next day Sir John Malyoe's belongings began to come aboard the Belle
Helen, and in the afternoon that same lean, villainous manservant comes
skipping across the gangplank as nimble as a goat, with two black men
behind him lugging a great sea chest. "What!" he cried out, "and so you
is the supercargo, is you? Why, I thought you was more account when
I saw you last night a-sitting talking with His Honor like his equal.
Well, no matter; 'tis something to have a brisk, genteel young fellow
for a supercargo. So come, my hearty, lend a hand, will you, and help me
set His Honor's cabin to rights."

What a speech was this to endure from such a fellow, to be sure! and
Barnaby so high in his own esteem, and holding himself a gentleman!
Well, what with his distaste for the villain, and what with such odious
familiarity, you can guess into what temper so impudent an address must
have cast him. "You'll find the steward in yonder," he said, "and
he'll show you the cabin," and therewith turned and walked away with
prodigious dignity, leaving the other standing where he was.

As he entered his own cabin he could not but see, out of the tail of his
eye, that the fellow was still standing where he had left him, regarding
him with a most evil, malevolent countenance, so that he had the
satisfaction of knowing that he had made one enemy during that voyage
who was not very likely to forgive or forget what he must regard as a
slight put upon him.

The next day Sir John Malyoe himself came aboard, accompanied by his
granddaughter, and followed by this man, and he followed again by four
black men, who carried among them two trunks, not large in size, but
prodigious heavy in weight, and toward which Sir John and his follower
devoted the utmost solicitude and care to see that they were properly
carried into the state cabin he was to occupy. Barnaby True was standing
in the great cabin as they passed close by him; but though Sir John
Malyoe looked hard at him and straight in the face, he never so much as
spoke a single word, or showed by a look or a sign that he knew who our
hero was. At this the serving man, who saw it all with eyes as quick as
a cat's, fell to grinning and chuckling to see Barnaby in his turn so
slighted.

The young lady, who also saw it all, flushed up red, then in the instant
of passing looked straight at our hero, and bowed and smiled at him with
a most sweet and gracious affability, then the next moment recovering
herself, as though mightily frightened at what she had done.

The same day the Belle Helen sailed, with as beautiful, sweet weather as
ever a body could wish for.

There were only two other passengers aboard, the Rev. Simon Styles, the
master of a flourishing academy in Spanish Town, and his wife, a good,
worthy old couple, but very quiet, and would sit in the great cabin by
the hour together reading, so that, what with Sir John Malyoe staying
all the time in his own cabin with those two trunks he held so precious,
it fell upon Barnaby True in great part to show attention to the young
lady; and glad enough he was of the opportunity, as anyone may guess.
For when you consider a brisk, lively young man of one-and-twenty and a
sweet, beautiful miss of seventeen so thrown together day after day for
two weeks, the weather being very fair, as I have said, and the ship
tossing and bowling along before a fine humming breeze that sent white
caps all over the sea, and with nothing to do but sit and look at that
blue sea and the bright sky overhead, it is not hard to suppose what was
to befall, and what pleasure it was to Barnaby True to show attention to
her.

But, oh! those days when a man is young, and, whether wisely or no,
fallen in love! How often during that voyage did our hero lie awake in
his berth at night, tossing this way and that without sleep--not that
he wanted to sleep if he could, but would rather lie so awake thinking
about her and staring into the darkness!

Poor fool! He might have known that the end must come to such a fool's
paradise before very long. For who was he to look up to Sir John
Malyoe's granddaughter, he, the supercargo of a merchant ship, and she
the granddaughter of a baronet.

Nevertheless, things went along very smooth and pleasant, until one
evening, when all came of a sudden to an end. At that time he and the
young lady had been standing for a long while together, leaning over
the rail and looking out across the water through the dusk toward the
westward, where the sky was still of a lingering brightness. She had
been mightily quiet and dull all that evening, but now of a sudden she
began, without any preface whatever, to tell Barnaby about herself and
her affairs. She said that she and her grandfather were going to New
York that they might take passage thence to Boston town, there to meet
her cousin Captain Malyoe, who was stationed in garrison at that place.
Then she went on to say that Captain Malyoe was the next heir to the
Devonshire estate, and that she and he were to be married in the fall.

But, poor Barnaby! what a fool was he, to be sure! Methinks when she
first began to speak about Captain Malyoe he knew what was coming. But
now that she had told him, he could say nothing, but stood there staring
across the ocean, his breath coming hot and dry as ashes in his throat.
She, poor thing, went on to say, in a very low voice, that she had liked
him from the very first moment she had seen him, and had been very happy
for these days, and would always think of him as a dear friend who had
been very kind to her, who had so little pleasure in life, and so would
always remember him.

Then they were both silent, until at last Barnaby made shift to say,
though in a hoarse and croaking voice, that Captain Malyoe must be a
very happy man, and that if he were in Captain Malyoe's place he would
be the happiest man in the world. Thus, having spoken, and so found his
tongue, he went on to tell her, with his head all in a whirl, that he,
too, loved her, and that what she had told him struck him to the heart,
and made him the most miserable, unhappy wretch in the whole world.

She was not angry at what he said, nor did she turn to look at him, but
only said, in a low voice, he should not talk so, for that it could only
be a pain to them both to speak of such things, and that whether she
would or no, she must do everything as her grandfather bade her, for
that he was indeed a terrible man.

To this poor Barnaby could only repeat that he loved her with all his
heart, that he had hoped for nothing in his love, but that he was now
the most miserable man in the world.

It was at this moment, so tragic for him, that some one who had been
hiding nigh them all the while suddenly moved away, and Barnaby True
could see in the gathering darkness that it was that villain manservant
of Sir John Malyoe's and knew that he must have overheard all that had
been said.

The man went straight to the great cabin, and poor Barnaby, his brain
all atingle, stood looking after him, feeling that now indeed the last
drop of bitterness had been added to his trouble to have such a wretch
overhear what he had said.

The young lady could not have seen the fellow, for she continued leaning
over the rail, and Barnaby True, standing at her side, not moving, but
in such a tumult of many passions that he was like one bewildered, and
his heart beating as though to smother him.

So they stood for I know not how long when, of a sudden, Sir John
Malyoe comes running out of the cabin, without his hat, but carrying his
gold-headed cane, and so straight across the deck to where Barnaby and
the young lady stood, that spying wretch close at his heels, grinning
like an imp.

"You hussy!" bawled out Sir John, so soon as he had come pretty near
them, and in so loud a voice that all on deck might have heard the
words; and as he spoke he waved his cane back and forth as though he
would have struck the young lady, who, shrinking back almost upon the
deck, crouched as though to escape such a blow. "You hussy!" he bawled
out with vile oaths, too horrible here to be set down. "What do you do
here with this Yankee supercargo, not fit for a gentlewoman to wipe her
feet upon? Get to your cabin, you hussy" (only it was something worse he
called her this time), "before I lay this cane across your shoulders!"

What with the whirling of Barnaby's brains and the passion into which he
was already melted, what with his despair and his love, and his anger at
this address, a man gone mad could scarcely be less accountable for his
actions than was he at that moment. Hardly knowing what he did, he put
his hand against Sir John Malyoe's breast and thrust him violently back,
crying out upon him in a great, loud, hoarse voice for threatening a
young lady, and saying that for a farthing he would wrench the stick out
of his hand and throw it overboard.

Sir John went staggering back with the push Barnaby gave him, and then
caught himself up again. Then, with a great bellow, ran roaring at our
hero, whirling his cane about, and I do believe would have struck him
(and God knows then what might have happened) had not his manservant
caught him and held him back.

"Keep back!" cried out our hero, still mighty hoarse. "Keep back! If you
strike me with that stick I'll fling you overboard!"

By this time, what with the sound of loud voices and the stamping of
feet, some of the crew and others aboard were hurrying up, and the next
moment Captain Manly and the first mate, Mr. Freesden, came running out
of the cabin. But Barnaby, who was by this fairly set agoing, could not
now stop himself.

"And who are you, anyhow," he cried out, "to threaten to strike me and
to insult me, who am as good as you? You dare not strike me! You may
shoot a man from behind, as you shot poor Captain Brand on the Rio Cobra
River, but you won't dare strike me face to face. I know who you are and
what you are!"

By this time Sir John Malyoe had ceased to endeavor to strike him, but
stood stock-still, his great bulging eyes staring as though they would
pop out of his head.

"What's all this?" cries Captain Manly, bustling up to them with Mr.
Freesden. "What does all this mean?"

But, as I have said, our hero was too far gone now to contain himself
until all that he had to say was out.

"The damned villain insulted me and insulted the young lady," he cried
out, panting in the extremity of his passion, "and then he threatened
to strike me with his cane. But I know who he is and what he is. I know
what he's got in his cabin in those two trunks, and where he found
it, and whom it belongs to. He found it on the shores of the Rio Cobra
River, and I have only to open my mouth and tell what I know about it."

At this Captain Manly clapped his hand upon our hero's shoulder and fell
to shaking him so that he could scarcely stand, calling out to him the
while to be silent. "What do you mean?" he cried. "An officer of this
ship to quarrel with a passenger of mine! Go straight to your cabin, and
stay there till I give you leave to come out again."

At this Master Barnaby came somewhat back to himself and into his
wits again with a jump. "But he threatened to strike me with his cane,
Captain," he cried out, "and that I won't stand from any man!"

"No matter what he did," said Captain Manly, very sternly. "Go to your
cabin, as I bid you, and stay there till I tell you to come out again,
and when we get to New York I'll take pains to tell your stepfather of
how you have behaved. I'll have no such rioting as this aboard my ship."

Barnaby True looked around him, but the young lady was gone. Nor, in the
blindness of his frenzy, had he seen when she had gone nor whither she
went. As for Sir John Malyoe, he stood in the light of a lantern, his
face gone as white as ashes, and I do believe if a look could kill, the
dreadful malevolent stare he fixed upon Barnaby True would have slain
him where he stood.

After Captain Manly had so shaken some wits into poor Barnaby he,
unhappy wretch, went to his cabin, as he was bidden to do, and there,
shutting the door upon himself, and flinging himself down, all dressed
as he was, upon his berth, yielded himself over to the profoundest
passion of humiliation and despair.

There he lay for I know not how long, staring into the darkness, until
by and by, in spite of his suffering and his despair, he dozed off into
a loose sleep, that was more like waking than sleep, being possessed
continually by the most vivid and distasteful dreams, from which he
would awaken only to doze off and to dream again.

It was from the midst of one of these extravagant dreams that he was
suddenly aroused by the noise of a pistol shot, and then the noise of
another and another, and then a great bump and a grinding jar, and then
the sound of many footsteps running across the deck and down into the
great cabin. Then came a tremendous uproar of voices in the great cabin,
the struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking violently
against the partitions and bulkheads. At the same instant arose a
screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that Sir John Malyoe's,
crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You damned
villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the
close space of the great cabin.

Barnaby was out in the middle of his cabin in a moment, and taking only
time enough to snatch down one of the pistols that hung at the head of
his berth, flung out into the great cabin, to find it as black as night,
the lantern slung there having been either blown out or dashed out into
darkness. The prodigiously dark space was full of uproar, the hubbub
and confusion pierced through and through by that keen sound of women's
voices screaming, one in the cabin and the other in the stateroom
beyond. Almost immediately Barnaby pitched headlong over two or three
struggling men scuffling together upon the deck, falling with a great
clatter and the loss of his pistol, which, however, he regained almost
immediately.

What all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard
Captain Manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "You bloody
pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what had
happened came to him like a dash, and that they had been attacked in the
night by pirates.

Looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness
of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing still
and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and so by
some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker
of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he
covered the bosom of that shadowy figure pointblank, as he thought, with
his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger.

In the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the
pistol shot, Barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat
face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be
a great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold
lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons.
Then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again.

But in the instant Sir John Malyoe called out, in a great loud voice:
"My God! 'Tis William Brand!" Therewith came the sound of some one
falling heavily down.

The next moment, Barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the
darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing
exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had missed
it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden bullet
might do it no harm. Though if it was indeed an apparition that Barnaby
beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as plain as
ever he saw a living man in all of his life.

This was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether
by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible violent
blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand stars flash
before his eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his head, swooned
dead away.

When Barnaby True came back to his senses again it was to find himself
being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with cold
water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though a
chirurgeon was attending to him.

He could not immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he
had opened his eyes to find himself in a strange cabin, extremely well
fitted and painted with white and gold, the light of a lantern shining
in his eyes, together with the gray of the early daylight through the
dead-eye. Two men were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped
shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver earrings in
his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange outlandish dress of
a foreign make, and with great mustachios hanging down, and with gold
earrings in his ears.

It was the latter who was attending to Barnaby's hurt with such extreme
care and gentleness.

All this Barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his swoon.
Then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as though
it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with great
effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to what
sort of pirates these could be who would first knock a man in the head
so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take
such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and
comfortable.

Nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there gathering his wits
together and wondering thus until the bandage was properly tied about
his head and sewed together. Then once more he opened his eyes, and
looked up to ask where he was.

Either they who were attending to him did not choose to reply, or else
they could not speak English, for they made no answer, excepting by
signs; for the white man, seeing that he was now able to speak, and
so was come back into his senses again, nodded his head three or four
times, and smiled with a grin of his white teeth, and then pointed, as
though toward a saloon beyond. At the same time the negro held up our
hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on, so that Barnaby, seeing
that it was required of him to meet some one without, arose, though with
a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro to help him on with his
coat, still feeling mightily dizzy and uncertain upon his legs, his head
beating fit to split, and the vessel rolling and pitching at a great
rate, as though upon a heavy ground swell.

So, still sick and dizzy, he went out into what was indeed a fine saloon
beyond, painted in white and gilt like the cabin he had just quitted,
and fitted in the nicest fashion, a mahogany table, polished very
bright, extending the length of the room, and a quantity of bottles,
together with glasses of clear crystal, arranged in a hanging rack
above.

Here at the table a man was sitting with his back to our hero, clad in
a rough pea-jacket, and with a red handkerchief tied around his throat,
his feet stretched out before him, and he smoking a pipe of tobacco with
all the ease and comfort in the world.

As Barnaby came in he turned round, and, to the profound astonishment
of our hero, presented toward him in the light of the lantern, the dawn
shining pretty strong through the skylight, the face of that very man
who had conducted the mysterious expedition that night across Kingston
Harbor to the Rio Cobra River.

This man looked steadily at Barnaby True for a moment or two, and
then burst out laughing; and, indeed, Barnaby, standing there with the
bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that
astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into
whose hands he had fallen.

"Well," says the other, "and so you be up at last, and no great harm
done, I'll be bound. And how does your head feel by now, my young
master?"

To this Barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the dizziness
of his head, seated himself at the table over against the speaker,
who pushed a bottle of rum toward him, together with a glass from the
swinging shelf above.

He watched Barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so began
immediately by saying: "I do suppose you think you were treated
mightily ill to be so handled last night. Well, so you were treated ill
enough--though who hit you that crack upon the head I know no more than
a child unborn. Well, I am sorry for the way you were handled, but there
is this much to say, and of that you may believe me, that nothing was
meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with us all you
will believe that well enough."

Here he helped himself to a taste of grog, and sucking in his lips,
went on again with what he had to say. "Do you remember," said he, "that
expedition of ours in Kingston Harbor, and how we were all of us balked
that night?"

"Why, yes," said Barnaby True, "nor am I likely to forget it."

"And do you remember what I said to that villain, Jack Malyoe, that
night as his boat went by us?"

"As to that," said Barnaby True, "I do not know that I can say yes or
no, but if you will tell me, I will maybe answer you in kind."

"Why, I mean this," said the other. "I said that the villain had got the
better of us once again, but that next time it would be our turn, even
if William Brand himself had to come back from hell to put the business
through."

"I remember something of the sort," said Barnaby, "now that you speak of
it, but still I am all in the dark as to what you are driving at."

The other looked at him very cunningly for a little while, his head on
one side, and his eyes half shut. Then, as if satisfied, he suddenly
burst out laughing. "Look hither," said he, "and I'll show you
something," and therewith, moving to one side, disclosed a couple of
traveling cases or small trunks with brass studs, so exactly like those
that Sir John Malyoe had fetched aboard at Jamaica that Barnaby, putting
this and that together, knew that they must be the same.

Our hero had a strong enough suspicion as to what those two cases
contained, and his suspicions had become a certainty when he saw Sir
John Malyoe struck all white at being threatened about them, and his
face lowering so malevolently as to look murder had he dared do it. But,
Lord! what were suspicions or even certainty to what Barnaby True's two
eyes beheld when that man lifted the lids of the two cases--the locks
thereof having already been forced--and, flinging back first one lid and
then the other, displayed to Barnaby's astonished sight a great treasure
of gold and silver! Most of it tied up in leathern bags, to be sure,
but many of the coins, big and little, yellow and white, lying loose and
scattered about like so many beans, brimming the cases to the very top.

Barnaby sat dumb-struck at what he beheld; as to whether he breathed
or no, I cannot tell; but this I know, that he sat staring at that
marvelous treasure like a man in a trance, until, after a few seconds of
this golden display, the other banged down the lids again and burst out
laughing, whereupon he came back to himself with a jump.

"Well, and what do you think of that?" said the other. "Is it not enough
for a man to turn pirate for? But," he continued, "it is not for the
sake of showing you this that I have been waiting for you here so long
a while, but to tell you that you are not the only passenger aboard, but
that there is another, whom I am to confide to your care and attention,
according to orders I have received; so, if you are ready, Master
Barnaby, I'll fetch her in directly." He waited for a moment, as though
for Barnaby to speak, but our hero not replying, he arose and, putting
away the bottle of rum and the glasses, crossed the saloon to a door
like that from which Barnaby had come a little while before. This he
opened, and after a moment's delay and a few words spoken to some one
within, ushered thence a young lady, who came out very slowly into the
saloon where Barnaby still sat at the table.

It was Miss Marjorie Malyoe, very white, and looking as though stunned
or bewildered by all that had befallen her.

Barnaby True could never tell whether the amazing strange voyage that
followed was of long or of short duration; whether it occupied three
days or ten days. For conceive, if you choose, two people of flesh
and blood moving and living continually in all the circumstances and
surroundings as of a nightmare dream, yet they two so happy together
that all the universe beside was of no moment to them! How was anyone
to tell whether in such circumstances any time appeared to be long or
short? Does a dream appear to be long or to be short?

The vessel in which they sailed was a brigantine of good size and build,
but manned by a considerable crew, the most strange and outlandish in
their appearance that Barnaby had ever beheld--some white, some yellow,
some black, and all tricked out with gay colors, and gold earrings
in their ears, and some with great long mustachios, and others with
handkerchiefs tied around their heads, and all talking a language
together of which Barnaby True could understand not a single word, but
which might have been Portuguese from one or two phrases he caught. Nor
did this strange, mysterious crew, of God knows what sort of men, seem
to pay any attention whatever to Barnaby or to the young lady. They
might now and then have looked at him and her out of the corners of
their yellow eyes, but that was all; otherwise they were indeed like
the creatures of a nightmare dream. Only he who was the captain of
this outlandish crew would maybe speak to Barnaby a few words as to the
weather or what not when he would come down into the saloon to mix a
glass of grog or to light a pipe of tobacco, and then to go on deck
again about his business. Otherwise our hero and the young lady were
left to themselves, to do as they pleased, with no one to interfere with
them.

As for her, she at no time showed any great sign of terror or of fear,
only for a little while was singularly numb and quiet, as though dazed
with what had happened to her. Indeed, methinks that wild beast, her
grandfather, had so crushed her spirit by his tyranny and his violence
that nothing that happened to her might seem sharp and keen, as it does
to others of an ordinary sort.

But this was only at first, for afterward her face began to grow
singularly clear, as with a white light, and she would sit quite still,
permitting Barnaby to gaze, I know not how long, into her eyes, her face
so transfigured and her lips smiling, and they, as it were, neither
of them breathing, but hearing, as in another far-distant place, the
outlandish jargon of the crew talking together in the warm, bright
sunlight, or the sound of creaking block and tackle as they hauled upon
the sheets.

Is it, then, any wonder that Barnaby True could never remember whether
such a voyage as this was long or short?

It was as though they might have sailed so upon that wonderful voyage
forever. You may guess how amazed was Barnaby True when, coming upon
deck one morning, he found the brigantine riding upon an even keel,
at anchor off Staten Island, a small village on the shore, and the
well-known roofs and chimneys of New York town in plain sight across the
water.

'Twas the last place in the world he had expected to see.

And, indeed, it did seem strange to lie there alongside Staten Island
all that day, with New York town so nigh at hand and yet so impossible
to reach. For whether he desired to escape or no, Barnaby True could not
but observe that both he and the young lady were so closely watched that
they might as well have been prisoners, tied hand and foot and laid in
the hold, so far as any hope of getting away was concerned.

All that day there was a deal of mysterious coming and going aboard
the brigantine, and in the afternoon a sailboat went up to the town,
carrying the captain, and a great load covered over with a tarpaulin in
the stern. What was so taken up to the town Barnaby did not then guess,
but the boat did not return again till about sundown.

For the sun was just dropping below the water when the captain came
aboard once more and, finding Barnaby on deck, bade him come down into
the saloon, where they found the young lady sitting, the broad light of
the evening shining in through the skylight, and making it all pretty
bright within.

The captain commanded Barnaby to be seated, for he had something of
moment to say to him; whereupon, as soon as Barnaby had taken his
place alongside the young lady, he began very seriously, with a preface
somewhat thus: "Though you may think me the captain of this brigantine,
young gentleman, I am not really so, but am under orders, and so have
only carried out those orders of a superior in all these things that I
have done." Having so begun, he went on to say that there was one thing
yet remaining for him to do, and that the greatest thing of all. He said
that Barnaby and the young lady had not been fetched away from the Belle
Helen as they were by any mere chance of accident, but that 'twas all a
plan laid by a head wiser than his, and carried out by one whom he must
obey in all things. He said that he hoped that both Barnaby and the
young lady would perform willingly what they would be now called upon
to do, but that whether they did it willingly or no, they must, for that
those were the orders of one who was not to be disobeyed.

You may guess how our hero held his breath at all this; but whatever
might have been his expectations, the very wildest of them all did not
reach to that which was demanded of him. "My orders are these," said the
other, continuing: "I am to take you and the young lady ashore, and to
see that you are married before I quit you; and to that end a very
good, decent, honest minister who lives ashore yonder in the village was
chosen and hath been spoken to and is now, no doubt, waiting for you to
come. Such are my orders, and this is the last thing I am set to do; so
now I will leave you alone together for five minutes to talk it over,
but be quick about it, for whether willing or not, this thing must be
done."

Thereupon he went away, as he had promised, leaving those two alone
together, Barnaby like one turned into stone, and the young lady, her
face turned away, flaming as red as fire in the fading light.

Nor can I tell what Barnaby said to her, nor what words he used, but
only, all in a tumult, with neither beginning nor end he told her that
God knew he loved her, and that with all his heart and soul, and that
there was nothing in all the world for him but her; but, nevertheless,
if she would not have it as had been ordered, and if she were not
willing to marry him as she was bidden to do, he would rather die
than lend himself to forcing her to do such a thing against her will.
Nevertheless, he told her she must speak up and tell him yes or no, and
that God knew he would give all the world if she would say "yes."

All this and more he said in such a tumult of words that there was no
order in their speaking, and she sitting there, her bosom rising and
falling as though her breath stifled her. Nor may I tell what she
replied to him, only this, that she said she would marry him. At this he
took her into his arms and set his lips to hers, his heart all melting
away in his bosom.

So presently came the captain back into the saloon again, to find
Barnaby sitting there holding her hand, she with her face turned away,
and his heart beating like a trip hammer, and so saw that all was
settled as he would have it. Wherewith he wished them both joy, and gave
Barnaby his hand.

The yawlboat belonging to the brigantine was ready and waiting alongside
when they came upon deck, and immediately they descended to it and took
their seats. So they landed, and in a little while were walking up the
village street in the darkness, she clinging to his arm as though she
would swoon, and the captain of the brigantine and two other men from
aboard following after them. And so to the minister's house, finding him
waiting for them, smoking his pipe in the warm evening, and walking up
and down in front of his own door. He immediately conducted them into
the house, where, his wife having fetched a candle, and two others
of the village folk being present, the good man having asked several
questions as to their names and their age and where they were from,
the ceremony was performed, and the certificate duly signed by those
present--excepting the men who had come ashore from the brigantine, and
who refused to set their hands to any paper.

The same sailboat that had taken the captain up to the town in the
afternoon was waiting for them at the landing place, whence, the
captain, having wished them Godspeed, and having shaken Barnaby very
heartily by the hand, they pushed off, and, coming about, ran away with
the slant of the wind, dropping the shore and those strange beings alike
behind them into the night.

As they sped away through the darkness they could hear the creaking of
the sails being hoisted aboard of the brigantine, and so knew that she
was about to put to sea once more. Nor did Barnaby True ever set eyes
upon those beings again, nor did anyone else that I ever heard tell of.

It was nigh midnight when they made Mr. Hartright's wharf at the foot of
Wall Street, and so the streets were all dark and silent and deserted as
they walked up to Barnaby's home.

You may conceive of the wonder and amazement of Barnaby's dear
stepfather when, clad in a dressing gown and carrying a lighted candle
in his hand, he unlocked and unbarred the door, and so saw who it
was had aroused him at such an hour of the night, and the young and
beautiful lady whom Barnaby had fetched with him.

The first thought of the good man was that the Belle Helen had come into
port; nor did Barnaby undeceive him as he led the way into the house,
but waited until they were all safe and sound in privily together before
he should unfold his strange and wonderful story.

"This was left for you by two foreign sailors this afternoon, Barnaby,"
the good old man said, as he led the way through the hall, holding up
the candle at the same time, so that Barnaby might see an object that
stood against the wainscoting by the door of the dining room.

Nor could Barnaby refrain from crying out with amazement when he saw
that it was one of the two chests of treasure that Sir John Malyoe had
fetched from Jamaica, and which the pirates had taken from the Belle
Helen. As for Mr. Hartright, he guessed no more what was in it than the
man in the moon.

The next day but one brought the Belle Helen herself into port, with the
terrible news not only of having been attacked at night by pirates, but
also that Sir John Malyoe was dead. For whether it was the sudden shock
of the sight of his old captain's face--whom he himself had murdered
and thought dead and buried--flashing so out against the darkness, or
whether it was the strain of passion that overset his brains, certain
it is that when the pirates left the Belle Helen, carrying with them the
young lady and Barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard
the Belle Helen found Sir John Malyoe lying in a fit upon the floor,
frothing at the mouth and black in the face, as though he had been
choked, and so took him away to his berth, where, the next morning about
ten o'clock, he died, without once having opened his eyes or spoken a
single word.

As for the villain manservant, no one ever saw him afterward; though
whether he jumped overboard, or whether the pirates who so attacked the
ship had carried him away bodily, who shall say?

Mr. Hartright, after he had heard Barnaby's story, had been very
uncertain as to the ownership of the chest of treasure that had been
left by those men for Barnaby, but the news of the death of Sir John
Malyoe made the matter very easy for him to decide. For surely if that
treasure did not belong to Barnaby, there could be no doubt that it must
belong to his wife, she being Sir John Malyoe's legal heir. And so it
was that that great fortune (in actual computation amounting to upward
of sixty-three thousand pounds) came to Barnaby True, the grandson of
that famous pirate, William Brand; the English estate in Devonshire, in
default of male issue of Sir John Malyoe, descended to Captain Malyoe,
whom the young lady was to have married.

As for the other case of treasure, it was never heard of again, nor
could Barnaby ever guess whether it was divided as booty among the
pirates, or whether they had carried it away with them to some strange
and foreign land, there to share it among themselves.

And so the ending of the story, with only this to observe, that whether
that strange appearance of Captain Brand's face by the light of the
pistol was a ghostly and spiritual appearance, or whether he was present
in flesh and blood, there is only to say that he was never heard of
again; nor had he ever been heard of till that time since the day he was
so shot from behind by Capt. John Malyoe on the banks of the Rio Cobra
River in the year 1733.




Chapter III. WITH THE BUCCANEERS

Being an Account of Certain Adventures that Befell Henry Mostyn Under
Capt. H. Morgan in the Year 1665-66


I.

ALTHOUGH this narration has more particularly to do with the taking of
the Spanish vice admiral in the harbor of Porto Bello, and of the rescue
therefrom of Le Sieur Simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure
of which was successfully achieved by Captain Morgan, the famous
buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless, premise something of the earlier
history of Master Harry Mostyn, whom you may, if you please, consider as
the hero of the several circumstances recounted in these pages.

In the year 1664 our hero's father embarked from Portsmouth, in England,
for the Barbados, where he owned a considerable sugar plantation.
Thither to those parts of America he transported with himself his whole
family, of whom our Master Harry was the fifth of eight children--a
great lusty fellow as little fitted for the Church (for which he was
designed) as could be. At the time of this story, though not above
sixteen years old, Master Harry Mostyn was as big and well-grown as many
a man of twenty, and of such a reckless and dare-devil spirit that no
adventure was too dangerous or too mischievous for him to embark upon.

At this time there was a deal of talk in those parts of the Americas
concerning Captain Morgan, and the prodigious successes he was having
pirating against the Spaniards.

This man had once been an indentured servant with Mr. Rolls, a sugar
factor at the Barbados. Having served out his time, and being of lawless
disposition, possessing also a prodigious appetite for adventure, he
joined with others of his kidney, and, purchasing a caravel of three
guns, embarked fairly upon that career of piracy the most successful
that ever was heard of in the world.

Master Harry had known this man very well while he was still with Mr.
Rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall,
broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips,
and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. Many knew him
for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he
had it in him to become so famous and renowned as he afterward grew to
be.

The fame of his exploits had been the talk of those parts for above a
twelvemonth, when, in the latter part of the year 1665, Captain Morgan,
having made a very successful expedition against the Spaniards into the
Gulf of Campeche--where he took several important purchases from
the plate fleet--came to the Barbados, there to fit out another such
venture, and to enlist recruits.

He and certain other adventurers had purchased a vessel of some five
hundred tons, which they proposed to convert into a pirate by cutting
portholes for cannon, and running three or four carronades across
her main deck. The name of this ship, be it mentioned, was the Good
Samaritan, as ill-fitting a name as could be for such a craft, which,
instead of being designed for the healing of wounds, was intended to
inflict such devastation as those wicked men proposed.

Here was a piece of mischief exactly fitted to our hero's tastes;
wherefore, having made up a bundle of clothes, and with not above a
shilling in his pocket, he made an excursion into the town to seek
for Captain Morgan. There he found the great pirate established at an
ordinary, with a little court of ragamuffins and swashbucklers gathered
about him, all talking very loud, and drinking healths in raw rum as
though it were sugared water.

And what a fine figure our buccaneer had grown, to be sure! How
different from the poor, humble clerk upon the sugar wharf! What a deal
of gold braid! What a fine, silver-hilled Spanish sword! What a gay
velvet sling, hung with three silver-mounted pistols! If Master Harry's
mind had not been made up before, to be sure such a spectacle of glory
would have determined it.

This figure of war our hero asked to step aside with him, and when they
had come into a corner, proposed to the other what he intended, and that
he had a mind to enlist as a gentleman adventurer upon this expedition.
Upon this our rogue of a buccaneer captain burst out a-laughing, and
fetching Master Harry a great thump upon the back, swore roundly that he
would make a man of him, and that it was a pity to make a parson out of
so good a piece of stuff.

Nor was Captain Morgan less good than his word, for when the Good
Samaritan set sail with a favoring wind for the island of Jamaica,
Master Harry found himself established as one of the adventurers aboard.


II

Could you but have seen the town of Port Royal as it appeared in the
year 1665 you would have beheld a sight very well worth while looking
upon. There were no fine houses at that time, and no great counting
houses built of brick, such as you may find nowadays, but a crowd of
board and wattled huts huddled along the streets, and all so gay with
flags and bits of color that Vanity Fair itself could not have been
gayer. To this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that infested
those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and poured out money
like water, and then maybe wound up their merrymaking by dying of fever.
For the sky in these torrid latitudes is all full of clouds overhead,
and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun shone forth it streamed down
upon the smoking sands so that the houses were ovens and the streets
were furnaces; so it was little wonder that men died like rats in a
hole. But little they appeared to care for that; so that everywhere you
might behold a multitude of painted women and Jews and merchants and
pirates, gaudy with red scarfs and gold braid and all sorts of odds and
ends of foolish finery, all fighting and gambling and bartering for that
ill-gotten treasure of the be-robbed Spaniard.

Here, arriving, Captain Morgan found a hearty welcome, and a message
from the governor awaiting him, the message bidding him attend His
Excellency upon the earliest occasion that offered. Whereupon, taking
our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously fond) along with him, our
pirate went, without any loss of time, to visit Sir Thomas Modiford, who
was then the royal governor of all this devil's brew of wickedness.

They found His Excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the shadow
of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with brick. He
was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt, breeches, and
stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. He was smoking a great
cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime juice and water and rum stood
at his elbow on a table. Here, out of the glare of the heat, it was all
very cool and pleasant, with a sea breeze blowing violently in through
the slats, setting them a-rattling now and then, and stirring Sir
Thomas's long hair, which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness.

The purport of this interview, I may tell you, concerned the rescue of
one Le Sieur Simon, who, together with his wife and daughter, was held
captive by the Spaniards.

This gentleman adventurer (Le Sieur Simon) had, a few years before, been
set up by the buccaneers as governor of the island of Santa Catharina.
This place, though well fortified by the Spaniards, the buccaneers
had seized upon, establishing themselves thereon, and so infesting the
commerce of those seas that no Spanish fleet was safe from them. At last
the Spaniards, no longer able to endure these assaults against their
commerce, sent a great force against the freebooters to drive them out
of their island stronghold. This they did, retaking Santa Catharina,
together with its governor, his wife, and daughter, as well as the whole
garrison of buccaneers.

This garrison was sent by their conquerors, some to the galleys, some
to the mines, some to no man knows where. The governor himself--Le Sieur
Simon--was to be sent to Spain, there to stand his trial for piracy.

The news of all this, I may tell you, had only just been received in
Jamaica, having been brought thither by a Spanish captain, one Don
Roderiguez Sylvia, who was, besides, the bearer of dispatches to the
Spanish authorities relating the whole affair.

Such, in fine, was the purport of this interview, and as our hero
and his captain walked back together from the governor's house to the
ordinary where they had taken up their inn, the buccaneer assured his
companion that he purposed to obtain those dispatches from the Spanish
captain that very afternoon, even if he had to use force to seize them.

All this, you are to understand, was undertaken only because of the
friendship that the governor and Captain Morgan entertained for Le Sieur
Simon. And, indeed, it was wonderful how honest and how faithful were
these wicked men in their dealings with one another. For you must know
that Governor Modiford and Le Sieur Simon and the buccaneers were all of
one kidney--all taking a share in the piracies of those times, and all
holding by one another as though they were the honestest men in the
world. Hence it was they were all so determined to rescue Le Sieur Simon
from the Spaniards.


III

Having reached his ordinary after his interview with the governor,
Captain Morgan found there a number of his companions, such as usually
gathered at that place to be in attendance upon him--some, those
belonging to the Good Samaritan; others, those who hoped to obtain
benefits from him; others, those ragamuffins who gathered around him
because he was famous, and because it pleased them to be of his court
and to be called his followers. For nearly always your successful pirate
had such a little court surrounding him.

Finding a dozen or more of these rascals gathered there, Captain Morgan
informed them of his present purpose that he was going to find the
Spanish captain to demand his papers of him, and calling upon them to
accompany him.

With this following at his heels, our buccaneer started off down the
street, his lieutenant, a Cornishman named Bartholomew Davis, upon one
hand and our hero upon the other. So they paraded the streets for the
best part of an hour before they found the Spanish captain. For whether
he had got wind that Captain Morgan was searching for him, or whether,
finding himself in a place so full of his enemies, he had buried himself
in some place of hiding, it is certain that the buccaneers had traversed
pretty nearly the whole town before they discovered that he was lying
at a certain auberge kept by a Portuguese Jew. Thither they went, and
thither Captain Morgan entered with the utmost coolness and composure of
demeanor, his followers crowding noisily in at his heels.

The space within was very dark, being lighted only by the doorway and by
two large slatted windows or openings in the front.

In this dark, hot place not over-roomy at the best--were gathered twelve
or fifteen villainous-appearing men, sitting at tables and drinking
together, waited upon by the Jew and his wife. Our hero had no trouble
in discovering which of this lot of men was Captain Sylvia, for not
only did Captain Morgan direct his glance full of war upon him, but the
Spaniard was clad with more particularity and with more show of finery
than any of the others who were there.

Him Captain Morgan approached and demanded his papers, whereunto the
other replied with such a jabber of Spanish and English that no man
could have understood what he said. To this Captain Morgan in turn
replied that he must have those papers, no matter what it might cost him
to obtain them, and thereupon drew a pistol from his sling and presented
it at the other's head.

At this threatening action the innkeeper's wife fell a-screaming, and
the Jew, as in a frenzy, besought them not to tear the house down about
his ears.

Our hero could hardly tell what followed, only that all of a sudden
there was a prodigious uproar of combat. Knives flashed everywhere,
and then a pistol was fired so close to his head that he stood like one
stunned, hearing some one crying out in a loud voice, but not knowing
whether it was a friend or a foe who had been shot. Then another pistol
shot so deafened what was left of Master Harry's hearing that his ears
rang for above an hour afterward. By this time the whole place was
full of gunpowder smoke, and there was the sound of blows and oaths and
outcrying and the clashing of knives.

As Master Harry, who had no great stomach for such a combat, and no very
particular interest in the quarrel, was making for the door, a little
Portuguese, as withered and as nimble as an ape, came ducking under the
table and plunged at his stomach with a great long knife, which, had
it effected its object, would surely have ended his adventures then and
there. Finding himself in such danger, Master Harry snatched up a heavy
chair, and, flinging it at his enemy, who was preparing for another
attack, he fairly ran for it out of the door, expecting every instant to
feel the thrust of the blade betwixt his ribs.

A considerable crowd had gathered outside, and others, hearing the
uproar, were coming running to join them. With these our hero stood,
trembling like a leaf, and with cold chills running up and down his back
like water at the narrow escape from the danger that had threatened him.

Nor shall you think him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly
sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the
sort he had encountered. Afterward, as you shall learn, he showed that
he could exhibit courage enough at a pinch.

While he stood there, endeavoring to recover his composure, the while
the tumult continued within, suddenly two men came running almost
together out of the door, a crowd of the combatants at their heels. The
first of these men was Captain Sylvia; the other, who was pursuing him,
was Captain Morgan.

As the crowd about the door parted before the sudden appearing of these,
the Spanish captain, perceiving, as he supposed, a way of escape opened
to him, darted across the street with incredible swiftness toward an
alleyway upon the other side. Upon this, seeing his prey like to get
away from him, Captain Morgan snatched a pistol out of his sling, and
resting it for an instant across his arm, fired at the flying Spaniard,
and that with so true an aim that, though the street was now full of
people, the other went tumbling over and over all of a heap in the
kennel, where he lay, after a twitch or two, as still as a log.

At the sound of the shot and the fall of the man the crowd scattered
upon all sides, yelling and screaming, and the street being thus pretty
clear, Captain Morgan ran across the way to where his victim lay, his
smoking pistol still in his hand, and our hero following close at his
heels.

Our poor Harry had never before beheld a man killed thus in an instant
who a moment before had been so full of life and activity, for when
Captain Morgan turned the body over upon its back he could perceive at a
glance, little as he knew of such matters, that the man was stone-dead.
And, indeed, it was a dreadful sight for him who was hardly more than
a child. He stood rooted for he knew not how long, staring down at the
dead face with twitching fingers and shuddering limbs. Meantime a great
crowd was gathering about them again. As for Captain Morgan, he went
about his work with the utmost coolness and deliberation imaginable,
unbuttoning the waistcoat and the shirt of the man he had murdered with
fingers that neither twitched nor shook. There were a gold cross and
a bunch of silver medals hung by a whipcord about the neck of the dead
man. This Captain Morgan broke away with a snap, reaching the jingling
baubles to Harry, who took them in his nerveless hand and fingers that
he could hardly close upon what they held.

The papers Captain Morgan found in a wallet in an inner breast pocket of
the Spaniard's waistcoat. These he examined one by one, and finding them
to his satisfaction, tied them up again, and slipped the wallet and its
contents into his own pocket.

Then for the first time he appeared to observe Master Harry, who,
indeed, must have been standing, the perfect picture of horror and
dismay. Whereupon, bursting out a-laughing, and slipping the pistol he
had used back into its sling again, he fetched poor Harry a great slap
upon the back, bidding him be a man, for that he would see many such
sights as this.

But indeed, it was no laughing matter for poor Master Harry, for it was
many a day before his imagination could rid itself of the image of the
dead Spaniard's face; and as he walked away down the street with his
companions, leaving the crowd behind them, and the dead body where it
lay for its friends to look after, his ears humming and ringing from
the deafening noise of the pistol shots fired in the close room, and the
sweat trickling down his face in drops, he knew not whether all that
had passed had been real, or whether it was a dream from which he might
presently awaken.


IV

The papers Captain Morgan had thus seized upon as the fruit of the
murder he had committed must have been as perfectly satisfactory to him
as could be, for having paid a second visit that evening to Governor
Modiford, the pirate lifted anchor the next morning and made sail toward
the Gulf of Darien. There, after cruising about in those waters for
about a fortnight without falling in with a vessel of any sort, at the
end of that time they overhauled a caravel bound from Porto Bello to
Cartagena, which vessel they took, and finding her loaded with nothing
better than raw hides, scuttled and sank her, being then about twenty
leagues from the main of Cartagena. From the captain of this vessel
they learned that the plate fleet was then lying in the harbor of Porto
Bello, not yet having set sail thence, but waiting for the change of the
winds before embarking for Spain. Besides this, which was a good deal
more to their purpose, the Spaniards told the pirates that the Sieur
Simon, his wife, and daughter were confined aboard the vice admiral of
that fleet, and that the name of the vice admiral was the Santa Maria y
Valladolid.

So soon as Captain Morgan had obtained the information he desired he
directed his course straight for the Bay of Santo Blaso, where he might
lie safely within the cape of that name without any danger of discovery
(that part of the mainland being entirely uninhabited) and yet be within
twenty or twenty-five leagues of Porto Bello.

Having come safely to this anchorage, he at once declared his intentions
to his companions, which were as follows:

That it was entirely impossible for them to hope to sail their vessel
into the harbor of Porto Bello, and to attack the Spanish vice admiral
where he lay in the midst of the armed flota; wherefore, if anything was
to be accomplished, it must be undertaken by some subtle design rather
than by open-handed boldness. Having so prefaced what he had to say, he
now declared that it was his purpose to take one of the ship's boats and
to go in that to Porto Bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to
aid him either in the accomplishment of his aims or in the gaining of
some further information. Having thus delivered himself, he invited any
who dared to do so to volunteer for the expedition, telling them plainly
that he would constrain no man to go against his will, for that at best
it was a desperate enterprise, possessing only the recommendation that
in its achievement the few who undertook it would gain great renown, and
perhaps a very considerable booty.

And such was the incredible influence of this bold man over his
companions, and such was their confidence in his skill and cunning, that
not above a dozen of all those aboard hung back from the undertaking,
but nearly every man desired to be taken.

Of these volunteers Captain Morgan chose twenty--among others our Master
Harry--and having arranged with his lieutenant that if nothing was heard
from the expedition at the end of three days he should sail for Jamaica
to await news, he embarked upon that enterprise, which, though never
heretofore published, was perhaps the boldest and the most desperate of
all those that have since made his name so famous. For what could be a
more unparalleled undertaking than for a little open boat, containing
but twenty men, to enter the harbor of the third strongest fortress of
the Spanish mainland with the intention of cutting out the Spanish vice
admiral from the midst of a whole fleet of powerfully armed vessels, and
how many men in all the world do you suppose would venture such a thing?

But there is this to be said of that great buccaneer: that if he
undertook enterprises so desperate as this, he yet laid his plans
so well that they never went altogether amiss. Moreover, the very
desperation of his successes was of such a nature that no man could
suspect that he would dare to undertake such things, and accordingly his
enemies were never prepared to guard against his attacks. Aye, had he
but worn the king's colors and served under the rules of honest war, he
might have become as great and as renowned as Admiral Blake himself.

But all that is neither here nor there; what I have to tell you now is
that Captain Morgan in this open boat with his twenty mates reached the
Cape of Salmedina toward the fall of day. Arriving within view of the
harbor they discovered the plate fleet at anchor, with two men-of-war
and an armed galley riding as a guard at the mouth of the harbor, scarce
half a league distant from the other ships. Having spied the fleet in
this posture, the pirates presently pulled down their sails and rowed
along the coast, feigning to be a Spanish vessel from Nombre de Dios. So
hugging the shore, they came boldly within the harbor, upon the opposite
side of which you might see the fortress a considerable distance away.

Being now come so near to the consummation of their adventure, Captain
Morgan required every man to make an oath to stand by him to the last,
whereunto our hero swore as heartily as any man aboard, although his
heart, I must needs confess, was beating at a great rate at the approach
of what was to happen. Having thus received the oaths of all his
followers, Captain Morgan commanded the surgeon of the expedition that,
when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the
boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to
push forward, with no chance of retreat. And such was the ascendancy of
this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one
of them uttered even so much as a murmur, though what he had commanded
the surgeon to do pledged them either to victory or to death, with no
chance to choose between. Nor did the surgeon question the orders he had
received, much less did he dream of disobeying them.

By now it had fallen pretty dusk, whereupon, spying two fishermen in a
canoe at a little distance, Captain Morgan demanded of them in Spanish
which vessel of those at anchor in the harbor was the vice admiral, for
that he had dispatches for the captain thereof. Whereupon the fishermen,
suspecting nothing, pointed to them a galleon of great size riding at
anchor not half a league distant.

Toward this vessel accordingly the pirates directed their course, and
when they had come pretty nigh, Captain Morgan called upon the surgeon
that now it was time for him to perform the duty that had been laid upon
him. Whereupon the other did as he was ordered, and that so thoroughly
that the water presently came gushing into the boat in great streams,
whereat all hands pulled for the galleon as though every next moment was
to be their last.

And what do you suppose were our hero's emotions at this time? Like all
in the boat, his awe of Captain Morgan was so great that I do believe he
would rather have gone to the bottom than have questioned his command,
even when it was to scuttle the boat. Nevertheless, when he felt the
cold water gushing about his feet (for he had taken off his shoes and
stockings) he became possessed with such a fear of being drowned that
even the Spanish galleon had no terrors for him if he could only feel
the solid planks thereof beneath his feet.

Indeed, all the crew appeared to be possessed of a like dismay, for they
pulled at the oars with such an incredible force that they were under
the quarter of the galleon before the boat was half filled with water.

Here, as they approached, it then being pretty dark and the moon not
yet having risen, the watch upon the deck hailed them, whereupon Captain
Morgan called out in Spanish that he was Capt. Alvarez Mendazo, and that
he brought dispatches for the vice admiral.

But at that moment, the boat being now so full of water as to be
logged, it suddenly tilted upon one side as though to sink beneath them,
whereupon all hands, without further orders, went scrambling up the
side, as nimble as so many monkeys, each armed with a pistol in one hand
and a cutlass in the other, and so were upon deck before the watch could
collect his wits to utter any outcry or to give any other alarm than to
cry out, "Jesu bless us! who are these?" at which words somebody knocked
him down with the butt of a pistol, though who it was our hero could not
tell in the darkness and the hurry.

Before any of those upon deck could recover from their alarm or those
from below come up upon deck, a part of the pirates, under the carpenter
and the surgeon, had run to the gun room and had taken possession of the
arms, while Captain Morgan, with Master Harry and a Portuguese called
Murillo Braziliano, had flown with the speed of the wind into the great
cabin.

Here they found the captain of the vice admiral playing at cards
with the Sieur Simon and a friend, Madam Simon and her daughter being
present.

Captain Morgan instantly set his pistol at the breast of the Spanish
captain, swearing with a most horrible fierce countenance that if he
spake a word or made any outcry he was a dead man. As for our hero,
having now got his hand into the game, he performed the same service for
the Spaniard's friend, declaring he would shoot him dead if he opened
his lips or lifted so much as a single finger.

All this while the ladies, not comprehending what had occurred, had sat
as mute as stones; but now having so far recovered themselves as to find
a voice, the younger of the two fell to screaming, at which the Sieur
Simon called out to her to be still, for these were friends who had come
to help them, and not enemies who had come to harm them.

All this, you are to understand, occupied only a little while, for in
less than a minute three or four of the pirates had come into the cabin,
who, together with the Portuguese, proceeded at once to bind the
two Spaniards hand and foot, and to gag them. This being done to our
buccaneer's satisfaction, and the Spanish captain being stretched out
in the corner of the cabin, he instantly cleared his countenance of its
terrors, and bursting forth into a great loud laugh, clapped his hand
to the Sieur Simon's, which he wrung with the best will in the world.
Having done this, and being in a fine humor after this his first
success, he turned to the two ladies. "And this, ladies," said he,
taking our hero by the hand and presenting him, "is a young gentleman
who has embarked with me to learn the trade of piracy. I recommend him
to your politeness."

Think what a confusion this threw our Master Harry into, to be sure,
who at his best was never easy in the company of strange ladies! You may
suppose what must have been his emotions to find himself thus introduced
to the attention of Madam Simon and her daughter, being at the time in
his bare feet, clad only in his shirt and breeches, and with no hat upon
his head, a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. However,
he was not left for long to his embarrassments, for almost immediately
after he had thus far relaxed, Captain Morgan fell of a sudden serious
again, and bidding the Sieur Simon to get his ladies away into some
place of safety, for the most hazardous part of this adventure was yet
to occur, he quitted the cabin with Master Harry and the other pirates
(for you may call him a pirate now) at his heels.

Having come upon deck, our hero beheld that a part of the Spanish crew
were huddled forward in a flock like so many sheep (the others being
crowded below with the hatches fastened upon them), and such was the
terror of the pirates, and so dreadful the name of Henry Morgan, that
not one of those poor wretches dared to lift up his voice to give any
alarm, nor even to attempt an escape by jumping overboard.

At Captain Morgan's orders, these men, together with certain of his own
company, ran nimbly aloft and began setting the sails, which, the night
now having fallen pretty thick, was not for a good while observed by any
of the vessels riding at anchor about them.

Indeed, the pirates might have made good their escape, with at most only
a shot or two from the men-of-war, had it not then been about the full
of the moon, which, having arisen, presently discovered to those of the
fleet that lay closest about them what was being done aboard the vice
admiral.

At this one of the vessels hailed them, and then after a while,
having no reply, hailed them again. Even then the Spaniards might not
immediately have suspected anything was amiss but only that the
vice admiral for some reason best known to himself was shifting his
anchorage, had not one of the Spaniards aloft--but who it was Captain
Morgan was never able to discover--answered the hail by crying out that
the vice admiral had been seized by the pirates.

At this the alarm was instantly given and the mischief done, for
presently there was a tremendous bustle through that part of the fleet
lying nighest the vice admiral--a deal of shouting of orders, a beating
of drums, and the running hither and thither of the crews.

But by this time the sails of the vice admiral had filled with a strong
land breeze that was blowing up the harbor, whereupon the carpenter,
at Captain Morgan's orders, having cut away both anchors, the galleon
presently bore away up the harbor, gathering headway every moment with
the wind nearly dead astern. The nearest vessel was the only one that
for the moment was able to offer any hindrance. This ship, having by
this time cleared away one of its guns, was able to fire a parting shot
against the vice-admiral, striking her somewhere forward, as our hero
could see by a great shower of splinters that flew up in the moonlight.

At the sound of the shot all the vessels of the flota not yet disturbed
by the alarm were aroused at once, so that the pirates had the
satisfaction of knowing that they would have to run the gantlet of
all the ships between them and the open sea before they could reckon
themselves escaped.

And, indeed, to our hero's mind it seemed that the battle which followed
must have been the most terrific cannonade that was ever heard in the
world. It was not so ill at first, for it was some while before the
Spaniards could get their guns clear for action, they being not the
least in the world prepared for such an occasion as this. But by and by
first one and then another ship opened fire upon the galleon, until it
seemed to our hero that all the thunders of heaven let loose upon them
could not have created a more prodigious uproar, and that it was not
possible that they could any of them escape destruction.

By now the moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke
that rose in the air appeared as white as snow. The air seemed full of
the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the
galleon, was magnified by our hero's imagination into ten times its
magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of
splinters it would cast up into the moonlight. At last he suddenly
beheld one poor man knocked sprawling across the deck, who, as he raised
his arm from behind the mast, disclosed that the hand was gone from it,
and that the shirt sleeve was red with blood in the moonlight. At this
sight all the strength fell away from poor Harry, and he felt sure that
a like fate or even a worse must be in store for him.

But, after all, this was nothing to what it might have been in
broad daylight, for what with the darkness of night, and the little
preparation the Spaniards could make for such a business, and
the extreme haste with which they discharged their guns (many not
understanding what was the occasion of all this uproar), nearly all the
shot flew so wide of the mark that not above one in twenty struck that
at which it was aimed.

Meantime Captain Morgan, with the Sieur Simon, who had followed him
upon deck, stood just above where our hero lay behind the shelter of the
bulwark. The captain had lit a pipe of tobacco, and he stood now in the
bright moonlight close to the rail, with his hands behind him, looking
out ahead with the utmost coolness imaginable, and paying no more
attention to the din of battle than though it were twenty leagues away.
Now and then he would take his pipe from his lips to utter an order to
the man at the wheel. Excepting this he stood there hardly moving at
all, the wind blowing his long red hair over his shoulders.

Had it not been for the armed galley the pirates might have got the
galleon away with no great harm done in spite of all this cannonading,
for the man-of-war which rode at anchor nighest to them at the mouth
of the harbor was still so far away that they might have passed it by
hugging pretty close to the shore, and that without any great harm being
done to them in the darkness. But just at this moment, when the open
water lay in sight, came this galley pulling out from behind the point
of the shore in such a manner as either to head our pirates off entirely
or else to compel them to approach so near to the man-of-war that that
latter vessel could bring its guns to bear with more effect.

This galley, I must tell you, was like others of its kind such as you
may find in these waters, the hull being long and cut low to the water
so as to allow the oars to dip freely. The bow was sharp and projected
far out ahead, mounting a swivel upon it, while at the stern a number of
galleries built one above another into a castle gave shelter to several
companies of musketeers as well as the officers commanding them.

Our hero could behold the approach of this galley from above the
starboard bulwarks, and it appeared to him impossible for them to
hope to escape either it or the man-of-war. But still Captain Morgan
maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while, only
now and then delivering an order to the man at the wheel, who, putting
the helm over, threw the bows of the galleon around more to the
larboard, as though to escape the bow of the galley and get into the
open water beyond. This course brought the pirates ever closer and
closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the din
of the battle, and with so much more effect that at every discharge you
might hear the crashing and crackling of splintered wood, and now and
then the outcry or groaning of some man who was hurt. Indeed, had it
been daylight, they must at this juncture all have perished, though,
as was said, what with the night and the confusion and the hurry, they
escaped entire destruction, though more by a miracle than through any
policy upon their own part.

Meantime the galley, steering as though to come aboard of them, had now
come so near that it, too, presently began to open its musketry fire
upon them, so that the humming and rattling of bullets were presently
added to the din of cannonading.

In two minutes more it would have been aboard of them, when in a moment
Captain Morgan roared out of a sudden to the man at the helm to put it
hard a starboard. In response the man ran the wheel over with the utmost
quickness, and the galleon, obeying her helm very readily, came around
upon a course which, if continued, would certainly bring them into
collision with their enemy.

It is possible at first the Spaniards imagined the pirates intended to
escape past their stern, for they instantly began backing oars to keep
them from getting past, so that the water was all of a foam about them,
at the same time they did this they poured in such a fire of musketry
that it was a miracle that no more execution was accomplished than
happened.

As for our hero, methinks for the moment he forgot all about everything
else than as to whether or no his captain's maneuver would succeed, for
in the very first moment he divined, as by some instinct, what Captain
Morgan purposed doing.

At this moment, so particular in the execution of this nice design,
a bullet suddenly struck down the man at the wheel. Hearing the sharp
outcry, our Harry turned to see him fall forward, and then to his hands
and knees upon the deck, the blood running in a black pool beneath him,
while the wheel, escaping from his hands, spun over until the spokes
were all of a mist.

In a moment the ship would have fallen off before the wind had not our
hero, leaping to the wheel (even as Captain Morgan shouted an order for
some one to do so), seized the flying spokes, whirling them back again,
and so bringing the bow of the galleon up to its former course.

In the first moment of this effort he had reckoned of nothing but of
carrying out his captain's designs. He neither thought of cannon balls
nor of bullets. But now that his task was accomplished, he came suddenly
back to himself to find the galleries of the galley aflame with musket
shots, and to become aware with a most horrible sinking of the spirits
that all the shots therefrom were intended for him. He cast his eyes
about him with despair, but no one came to ease him of his task, which,
having undertaken, he had too much spirit to resign from carrying
through to the end, though he was well aware that the very next instant
might mean his sudden and violent death. His ears hummed and rang, and
his brain swam as light as a feather. I know not whether he breathed,
but he shut his eyes tight as though that might save him from the
bullets that were raining about him.

At this moment the Spaniards must have discovered for the first time the
pirates' design, for of a sudden they ceased firing, and began to shout
out a multitude of orders, while the oars lashed the water all about
with a foam. But it was too late then for them to escape, for within a
couple of seconds the galleon struck her enemy a blow so violent upon
the larboard quarter as nearly to hurl our Harry upon the deck, and then
with a dreadful, horrible crackling of wood, commingled with a yelling
of men's voices, the galley was swung around upon her side, and the
galleon, sailing into the open sea, left nothing of her immediate enemy
but a sinking wreck, and the water dotted all over with bobbing heads
and waving hands in the moonlight.

And now, indeed, that all danger was past and gone, there were plenty
to come running to help our hero at the wheel. As for Captain Morgan,
having come down upon the main deck, he fetches the young helmsman a
clap upon the back. "Well, Master Harry," says he, "and did I not tell
you I would make a man of you?" Whereat our poor Harry fell a-laughing,
but with a sad catch in his voice, for his hands trembled as with an
ague, and were as cold as ice. As for his emotions, God knows he was
nearer crying than laughing, if Captain Morgan had but known it.

Nevertheless, though undertaken under the spur of the moment, I protest
it was indeed a brave deed, and I cannot but wonder how many young
gentlemen of sixteen there are to-day who, upon a like occasion, would
act as well as our Harry.


V

The balance of our hero's adventures were of a lighter sort than those
already recounted, for the next morning the Spanish captain (a very
polite and well-bred gentleman) having fitted him out with a shift of
his own clothes, Master Harry was presented in a proper form to the
ladies. For Captain Morgan, if he had felt a liking for the young man
before, could not now show sufficient regard for him. He ate in the
great cabin and was petted by all. Madam Simon, who was a fat and
red-faced lady, was forever praising him, and the young miss, who was
extremely well-looking, was as continually making eyes at him.

She and Master Harry, I must tell you, would spend hours together, she
making pretense of teaching him French, although he was so possessed
with a passion of love that he was nigh suffocated with it. She, upon
her part, perceiving his emotions, responded with extreme good nature
and complacency, so that had our hero been older, and the voyage proved
longer, he might have become entirely enmeshed in the toils of his
fair siren. For all this while, you are to understand, the pirates were
making sail straight for Jamaica, which they reached upon the third day
in perfect safety.

In that time, however, the pirates had well-nigh gone crazy for joy; for
when they came to examine their purchase they discovered her cargo to
consist of plate to the prodigious sum of L180,000 in value. 'Twas a
wonder they did not all make themselves drunk for joy. No doubt they
would have done so had not Captain Morgan, knowing they were still in
the exact track of the Spanish fleets, threatened them that the first
man among them who touched a drop of rum without his permission he would
shoot him dead upon the deck. This threat had such effect that they all
remained entirely sober until they had reached Port Royal Harbor, which
they did about nine o'clock in the morning.

And now it was that our hero's romance came all tumbling down about his
ears with a run. For they had hardly come to anchor in the harbor when
a boat came from a man-of-war, and who should come stepping aboard but
Lieutenant Grantley (a particular friend of our hero's father) and his
own eldest brother Thomas, who, putting on a very stern face, informed
Master Harry that he was a desperate and hardened villain who was sure
to end at the gallows, and that he was to go immediately back to his
home again. He told our embryo pirate that his family had nigh gone
distracted because of his wicked and ungrateful conduct. Nor could our
hero move him from his inflexible purpose. "What," says our Harry, "and
will you not then let me wait until our prize is divided and I get my
share?"

"Prize, indeed!" says his brother. "And do you then really think that
your father would consent to your having a share in this terrible bloody
and murthering business?"

And so, after a good deal of argument, our hero was constrained to go;
nor did he even have an opportunity to bid adieu to his inamorata. Nor
did he see her any more, except from a distance, she standing on the
poop deck as he was rowed away from her, her face all stained with
crying. For himself, he felt that there was no more joy in life;
nevertheless, standing up in the stern of the boat, he made shift,
though with an aching heart, to deliver her a fine bow with the hat he
had borrowed from the Spanish captain, before his brother bade him sit
down again.

And so to the ending of this story, with only this to relate, that our
Master Harry, so far from going to the gallows, became in good time a
respectable and wealthy sugar merchant with an English wife and a
fine family of children, whereunto, when the mood was upon him, he has
sometimes told these adventures (and sundry others not here recounted),
as I have told them unto you.




Chapter IV. TOM CHIST AND THE TREASURE BOX

An Old-time Story of the Days of Captain Kidd


I

TO tell about Tom Chist, and how he got his name, and how he came to be
living at the little settlement of Henlopen, just inside the mouth of
the Delaware Bay, the story must begin as far back as 1686, when a great
storm swept the Atlantic coast from end to end. During the heaviest part
of the hurricane a bark went ashore on the Hen-and-Chicken Shoals, just
below Cape Henlopen and at the mouth of the Delaware Bay, and Tom Chist
was the only soul of all those on board the ill-fated vessel who escaped
alive.

This story must first be told, because it was on account of the strange
and miraculous escape that happened to him at that time that he gained
the name that was given to him.

Even as late as that time of the American colonies, the little scattered
settlement at Henlopen, made up of English, with a few Dutch and Swedish
people, was still only a spot upon the face of the great American
wilderness that spread away, with swamp and forest, no man knew how far
to the westward. That wilderness was not only full of wild beasts, but
of Indian savages, who every fall would come in wandering tribes
to spend the winter along the shores of the fresh-water lakes below
Henlopen. There for four or five months they would live upon fish and
clams and wild ducks and geese, chipping their arrowheads, and making
their earthenware pots and pans under the lee of the sand hills and pine
woods below the Capes.

Sometimes on Sundays, when the Rev. Hillary Jones would be preaching
in the little log church back in the woods, these half-clad red savages
would come in from the cold, and sit squatting in the back part of the
church, listening stolidly to the words that had no meaning for them.

But about the wreck of the bark in 1686. Such a wreck as that which then
went ashore on the Hen-and-Chicken Shoals was a godsend to the poor and
needy settlers in the wilderness where so few good things ever came.
For the vessel went to pieces during the night, and the next morning
the beach was strewn with wreckage--boxes and barrels, chests and spars,
timbers and planks, a plentiful and bountiful harvest, to be gathered up
by the settlers as they chose, with no one to forbid or prevent them.

The name of the bark, as found painted on some of the water barrels
and sea chests, was the Bristol Merchant, and she no doubt hailed from
England.

As was said, the only soul who escaped alive off the wreck was Tom
Chist.

A settler, a fisherman named Matt Abrahamson, and his daughter Molly,
found Tom. He was washed up on the beach among the wreckage, in a great
wooden box which had been securely tied around with a rope and lashed
between two spars--apparently for better protection in beating through
the surf. Matt Abrahamson thought he had found something of more than
usual value when he came upon this chest; but when he cut the cords
and broke open the box with his broadax, he could not have been more
astonished had he beheld a salamander instead of a baby of nine or ten
months old lying half smothered in the blankets that covered the bottom
of the chest.

Matt Abrahamson's daughter Molly had had a baby who had died a month or
so before. So when she saw the little one lying there in the bottom of
the chest, she cried out in a great loud voice that the Good Man had
sent her another baby in place of her own.

The rain was driving before the hurricane storm in dim, slanting sheets,
and so she wrapped up the baby in the man's coat she wore and ran off
home without waiting to gather up any more of the wreckage.

It was Parson Jones who gave the foundling his name. When the news
came to his ears of what Matt Abrahamson had found he went over to the
fisherman's cabin to see the child. He examined the clothes in which the
baby was dressed. They were of fine linen and handsomely stitched, and
the reverend gentleman opined that the foundling's parents must have
been of quality. A kerchief had been wrapped around the baby's neck and
under its arms and tied behind, and in the corner, marked with very fine
needlework, were the initials T. C.

"What d'ye call him, Molly?" said Parson Jones. He was standing, as he
spoke, with his back to the fire, warming his palms before the blaze.
The pocket of the greatcoat he wore bulged out with a big case bottle of
spirits which he had gathered up out of the wreck that afternoon. "What
d'ye call him, Molly?"

"I'll call him Tom, after my own baby."

"That goes very well with the initial on the kerchief," said Parson
Jones. "But what other name d'ye give him? Let it be something to go
with the C."

"I don't know," said Molly.

"Why not call him 'Chist,' since he was born in a chist out of the sea?
'Tom Chist'--the name goes off like a flash in the pan." And so "Tom
Chist" he was called and "Tom Chist" he was christened.

So much for the beginnin

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