Plotting in Pirate Seas Part 27

"Abraham Ravene, commandant of the fort, lowered the red-white-and-blue flag of Holland in recognition of the American ship. In return, the _Andrea Doria_ fired a salute.

"This put the commandant in a quandary. Anch.o.r.ed not far from the _Andrea Doria_ was a British ship. The enmity of the British for Holland, and especially against Statia, was no secret.

"In order to shift the responsibility, Ravene went to consult De Graeff, the governor. De Graeff had already seen the _Andrea Doria_, for Ravene met him in the streets of the Upper Town. A clever lawyer and a keen business man, the governor had already made up his mind when Ravene spoke.

"'Two guns less than the national salute,'" was the order.

"And, so, the United States was for the first time recognized as a nation by this salute of eleven guns.

"For this act, De Graeff was subsequently recalled to Holland, but he was reinstated as Governor of Statia, and held that position when the island was taken by Rodney in 1781. The Dutch made no apology to England."

Saba, which lies close to Statia, depends for its interest on its location. It is but an old volcanic crater, sticking up out of the sea, in the interior of which a town has been built. As a writer describes it, "if the citizens of this town--which is most fitly called Bottom--wish to look at the sea, they must climb to the rim of the crater, as flies would crawl to the edge of a tea-cup, and look over.

They will see the ocean directly below them at the foot of a precipice some 1,300 feet high. To go down to the sea it is necessary to take a path with a slope like the roof of a house, and to descend the Ladder, an appalling stair on the side of a cliff marked at the steepest part by steps cut out of the face of the rock."

This strange town of Bottom is built with a heavy wall all round it, to save it from the torrents which stream down the inside slopes of the crater during a rain. Its population is mainly white, flaxen-haired descendants of the Dutch.

More amazing than all, most of the inhabitants are shipbuilders, but the ships, when built, have to be let down by ropes over the side of the cliff. These fishing smacks are not only built in a crater, but on an island which has neither beach, harbor, landing stage nor safe anchoring ground, where no timber is produced, where no iron is to be found, and where cordage is not made. The island has no more facilities for the shipbuilding trade than a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABOVE THE HOa.r.s.e SHOUTS OF RUFFIANS AND JACK-TARS, ROSE TEACH'S MURDEROUS WAR CRY.]

Pa.s.sing Saba, the steamer went on to her next port of call, St. Thomas.

Here was seen the influence of another European power. Barbados and Trinidad are English; Martinique, French; Statia and Saba, Dutch; but St. Thomas is Danish. It is the chief of the Virgin Islands, and rejoices in a saintlier name than many of its companions which are known as "Rum Island," "Dead Man's Chest," "Drowned Island," "Money Rock,"

"Cutla.s.s Isle" and so forth, the naming of which shows buccaneer authorship. Even in the town of Charlotte Amalia, the capital of St.

Thomas, the stamp of the pirate is strong, for two of the hills above the city are marked by the ruins of old stone buildings, one of which is called "Bluebeard's Castle," and "Blackbeard's Castle," the other. It was once, no doubt, one of the many ports of call of that Nero of pirates, Blackbeard Edward Teach.

Cecil's description of the buccaneers had greatly stimulated Stuart's interest in pirate stories, and, rightly thinking that he could sell a story to his paper by new photographs of "Blackbeard's Castle" and by a retelling of the last fight of that savage scoundrel, he set himself to find out what was known of this career of this "Chiefest and Most Unlovely of all the Pyrates" as he is called in a volume written by one of his contemporaries.

In appearance he was as fierce and repulsive as in character. He was of large size, powerfully built, hairy, with a mane-like beard which, black as his heart, grew up to his very eyes. This beard he twisted into four long tails, tied with ribbons, two of which he tucked behind his outstanding ears, and two over his shoulders. His hair was like a mat and grew low over his forehead. In fact, little of the skin of his face was visible, his fierce eyes glaring from a visage like that of a baboon. In fighting, it was his custom to stick lighted fuses under his hat, the glare of which, reflected in his jet-like eyes, greatly increased the ferocity of his appearance.

Teach was an execrable rascal, who ruled his ship by terror. The worst of his crew admitted him master of horror as well as of men. It was his custom ever and anon to shoot a member of his crew, whenever the fancy pleased him, in order that they should remember that he was captain.

Blackbeard is famous in the annals of piracy for his idea of a pleasant entertainment. One afternoon, when his ship was lying becalmed, the pirates found the time pa.s.s heavily. They had polished their weapons till they shone like silver. They had gambled until one-half of the company was swollen with plunder and the other half, penniless and savage. They had fought until there was nothing left to fight about, and it was too hot to sleep.

At this, Teach, hatless and shoeless, and, says his biographer, "a little flushed with drink"--as a man might be who spent most of his waking hours swigging pure rum--stumbled up on deck and made a proposal to his bored companions.

"I'm a better man than any o' you alive, an' I'll be a better man when we all go below. Here's for proving it!"

At which he routed up half a dozen of the most hardened of the crew, kicked them down into the hold, joined them himself and closed the hatches. There in the close, hot hold, smelling of a thousand odors, they set fire to "several pots full of brimstone and other inflammable matters" and did their best to reproduce what they thought to be the atmosphere of the Pit.

One by one, the rest gave in and burst for the comparatively free air of the deck, but Teach's ugly head was the last to come up the hatch, and his pride thereon was inordinate. It was the surest road to the Captain's good favors to remind him of his prowess in that stench-hole on a tropic afternoon.

Teach's death was worthy of his life. Lieutenant Maynard of H. M. S.

_Pearl_ learned that Teach was resting in a quiet cove near Okrac.o.ke Inlet, not far from Hatteras, N. C. He followed the pirate in a small sloop. Teach ran his craft ash.o.r.e.

Maynard was determined to get alongside the pirate, so with desperate haste he began to throw his ballast overboard. More than that, he staved in every water cask, until, feeling that he had enough freeboard, he slipped his anchor, set his mainsail and jib, and bore down upon the stranded sea robber.

As he came on, Teach, with fuses glowing under his hat, hailed him, and, standing on the taffrail, defied him and drank to his b.l.o.o.d.y end in a goblet of rum.... Teach, surrounded by his sullen and villainous gang, shrieked out the chorus of a sea song as the sloop drew near and, when she had drifted close enough, he pelted her deck with grenades.

At this moment, the two vessels touched, whereupon Teach and his crew, with hideous yells, and a great gleam of cutla.s.s blades, leapt upon the sloop's deck. Through the smoke cloud the awful figure of the pirate emerged, making for Maynard. At the same time, the men hidden in the sloop scrambled up from below, and the riot of the fight began.

As Teach and Maynard met, they both fired at each other, point blank.

The lieutenant dodged, but the robber was. .h.i.t in the face, and the blood was soon dripping from his beard, the ends of which were, as usual, tucked up over his ears.

There was no time to fumble with pistols now. So they fought with cutla.s.ses. Teach, spitting the blood from his mouth, swore that he would hack Maynard's soul from his body, but his opponent was too fine an adept with the sword to be easily disposed of. It was a fearful duel, a trial of the robber's immense strength against the officer's deftness.

They chased each other about the deck, stumbling across dead bodies, knocking down snarling men, who, clutched together, were fighting with knives. Ever through the mirk could be seen the pirate's grinning teeth and his evil eyes lighted by the burning and smoking fuses on either side of them, ever above the groans of the wounded and the hoa.r.s.e shouts of ruffians and jack tars, rose Teach's murderous war cry.

At last, Maynard, defending himself from a terrific blow, had his sword blade broken off at the hilt. Now was the pirate's chance. He aimed a slash at Maynard. The lieutenant put up the remnant of his sword and Teach's blow hacked off his fingers. Had the fight been left to the duel between the two, Maynard had not a second to live. But, just as the pirate's blow fell, one of the navy men brought his cutla.s.s down upon the back of the pirate's neck, half severing it. Teach, too enraged to realize it was his death blow, turned on the man and cut him to the deck.

The current of the fight changed. From all sides the jack tars, who dared not close with the pirate chief, fired pistols at him. The decks were slippery with blood. Still fighting, Teach kicked off his shoes, to get a better hold of the planks. His back was to the bulwarks. Six men were attacking him at once.

Panting horribly, and roaring curses still, Teach, with his dripping cutla.s.s, kept them all at bay. He had received twenty-five wounds, five of which were from bullets. His whole body was red. The half-severed head could not be held straight, but some incredible will power enabled him to twist his chin upwards, so that, to the last, his eyes glared with the fierce joy of battle, and the lips, already stiffening, smiled defiantly.

The six men drew back, aghast that a creature so wounded could still live and move, but Teach drew a pistol and was c.o.c.king it, when his eyelids closed slowly, as though he were going to sleep, and he fell back on the railing, dead.

So, in fitting manner, perished the last of the great pirates of the Spanish Main.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HUNGRY SHARK

"Hyar, sah! Please don' you go t'rowin' nuffin to de sharks, not 'roun'

dese waters, anyhow."

"Why?" asked Stuart in return, smiling at the grave face of the negro steward on board the steamer taking him from Porto Rico to Jamaica. His stay at Porto Rico had been brief, for he found a telegram awaiting him from Fergus, bidding him hurry at once to Kingston.

"No, sah," repeated the negro, "dar witch-sharks in dese waters, debbil-sharks, too. Folks do say dem ol' buccaneers, when dey died, was so bad dat eben de Bad Place couldn't take 'em. Now, dey's sharks, a-swimmin' to an' fro, an' lookin' for gol', like dem yar pirates used ter do."

"Oh, come, Sam, you don't believe that!" protested the boy. "What could a shark do with gold, if he had it?"

"Sho's you livin', Sah," came the response, "I done see two gol' rings an' a purse taken out'n the inside of a shark. An' you know how, right in dese hyar waters, a shark swallowed some papers, an' it was the findin' o' dose papers what stopped a lot o' trouble between Great Britain an' the United States, yes, Sah!"

The gift of silver crossing a palm has other powers besides that of inspiring a fortune-teller. It can inspire a story-teller, as well.

Stuart, scenting a story which he could send to the paper from Kingston, put half-a-crown where he thought it would do most good, namely, in the steward's palm and heard the strange (and absolutely true and authentic) story of the shark's papers.

"Yes, Sah," he began, "I know jes' how that was, 'cause my gran'pap, he was a porter in de Jamaica Inst.i.tute, an' when I was a small shaver I used to go wid him in the mornin's when he was sweepin' up, and I used to help him dust de cases. Yes, Sah. Bime by, when I got big enough to read, I got a lot o' my eddication from dose cases, yes, Sah!

"This hyar story begins dis way. On July 3, 1799--I remember de dates persackly--a brig, called de _Nancy_, lef' Baltimore for Curacao. Her owners were Germans, but 'Merican citizens, yes, Sah. Her cargo was s'posed to be dry goods, provisions an' lumber, but dere was a good deal more aboard her, guns, powder an' what they call contraband, ef you know jes' what that is. I don't rightly."

"I do," agreed Stuart. "Go ahead."

"Well, Sah, dis hyar brig _Nancy_, havin' stopped at Port-au-Prince, started on down de coast, when, strikin' a heavy blow, she los' her maintopmast. She was makin' for a little island, not far 'way, to make some repairs, when she was captured by H.M.S. _Sparrow_, a cutter belongin' to H.M.S. _Abergavenny_, de British flagship stationed at Port Royal. De _Sparrow_ was commanded by Lieutenant Hugh Wylie, and dis hyar Wylie sent her in with anoder prize, a Spanish one, to Port Royal. So, naterally, Wylie brings a suit for salvage against de _Nancy_, bein' an enemy vessel."

"But where does the shark come in?" queried Stuart, growing impatient.