IIIAt this port of Bab’s Key, then, the Mocca Fleet was being stuffed as the fox stole smoothly upon it from the Indian Ocean. About fourteen ships made up the fleet, going in mass for safety, and chartered by the usual polyglot crowd of Dutchmen, Arabians, Moors, Armenians and so on.While the coolies sweated and strained and hauled bundles and bales aboard, certain odd-looking strangers sauntered about the docks, marking closely the lading of the vessels. These were Kidd’s men, spies he had sent ashore to warn him of the sailing of the fleet. With desiring eyes these men watched the caravans pouring in from the interior and emptying their freights into the various holds. Rich merchandise lay spread all about,—loot that their doughty commander was to appropriate without a thank-you and distribute among their tarry palms.Not only that, but had you gone into the low, round hills that basined the town, you would have seen lurkers there, watching keenly the work on the fleet. More of theAdventure’smen, sentineled all around by the captain as a kind of double watch. Kidd, you notice, was a man ofmethod; it was not going to be any fault of his if Bellamont and Company did not pay dividends.Whether the presence of the spies had disturbed the skippers of the Mocca Fleet is conjectural, but when it did put to sea at length it was under both Dutch and English convoy. And in spite of Kidd’s keenness it got away without notice.Only when morning came above the swelling deep, after two or three weeks of waiting, did the lookout cry the captain from his cabin that the fleet was passing. True enough! There over the horizon the high poops of the Mocca ships were awkwardly wagging away to safety.Orders immediately showered the decks like the great drops of a thunderstorm. The anchor chain grated sharply against the bows while the shrouds were all at once black with racing men. A few minutes and theAdventurebegan to take the water slowly; sail after sail bellied out and quickly she leaped and ducked and flung herself upon the heels of her prey.Fourteen ships convoyed by armed Dutch and English guards would seem a large bone for so small a terrier as the pirate boat to grasp. Something must take possession of the reason of English-speaking sailormen when combat promises, for long odds challenge rather than daunt them. Their maritime acts sparkle with just such feats as this—absurd but in a way heroic—and hadKidd had the color of law upon his work, the story of the Mocca Fleet would have echoed in generations of English schoolrooms.Kidd certainly was grown on the tree that bore Grenville, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and the rest, even though it might have been advisable to prune him out. In quite the traditional spirit Kidd hurled his little ship at the great Mocca Fleet as casually as a boy would fling a stone into a flock of sparrows.It might stimulate the imagination to tell how this extraordinary effort netted big gain, and how theAdventureknocked the merchantmen to left and right and plucked the fattest and richest of them from their midst, from which the captain redeemed his tropical promise to ballast his ship with gold and silver. But that would not be the fact. The difficulties were too great. After a brief peppering on both sides with round shot, the pirates were forced to drop back, and leave the fleet, frightened, fluttering but safe, tumbling on for India.Well, it was a doughty but miscalculated start. TheAdventurerode high upon the waves instead of bulwark-deep with goodly gain. The good cheer aboard must have flagged. What, they asked one another, what if the whole commerce of this country should be organized into fleets; what would become of poor pirates? Here they were embarked in a trade at great spending of money and effort, come all the way from NewYork, only to find a great concentration of merchants against them,—surely a monopoly in restraint of trade. If this sort of thing kept up, there might be nothing for them left to do but to live up to the terms of the captain’s commission and be content to sift the loot from gentlemen of free enterprise who had been on the ground in happier and more prosperous days.Grumbling doubtless began now, if not before, and was kept up until it ended in a sad mischance to one Gunner Moore, which deplorable accident will shortly be narrated.Kidd now began to net the gulf for anything he could catch. They hauled in a little Moorish ship, which was but a poor sardine for the whale that had escaped. She was too small to put up a fight and Kidd just bullied her down. From her they took a few bales of coffee, some opium and twenty pieces of Arabian gold.They also caught a “linguister.” It turns out that a “linguister” is not an article of commerce, but nothing more nor less than an interpreter, in this particular case a Portuguese person. Not a bad word that,—linguister; language rather more expressive than the scholastic interpreter.Now you cannot ballast even a two hundred-and-seventy-ton craft with twenty pieces of Arabian gold and, refusing to believe that so poverty-stricken a craft could be in these rich reputed waters, Kidd improvised an inquisition. Some of the unfortunate captives werehung up by the wrists and beaten with naked cutlasses by way of persuading them to reveal the real treasures of their ship. Nothing so far as the record shows came of this strenuous examination. So the pirates turned them loose minus their coffee and opium and the contemptible pieces of Arabian gold.Rough usage this, but not the ultimate of ferocity with which Kidd has been charged. For all we know, this is as far as ever the captain went in the treatment of captive crews. It may be said as well here as anywhere that there is no walking the plank or other picturesque punishments of fiction. Ships were looted and turned loose, in most instances. Those of their crews who wished to might sign up with the pirates; their officers, if not sent back to their ships, were carried to the Indian coast and dumped there.All hands were then in no very sociable mood when the incidents of this immediate time closed with the matter of the Portuguese man-of-war.It was on an evening soon after the taking of the Moorish ship that theAdventuresaw and was seen by a cruising Portuguese war-vessel. Now there was nothing in Kidd’s contract with Bellamont, Livingston and the rest of them which even suggested that he should take any special risk, and of course not a line thereof which could warrant him in lying-to all night to risk the company’s property in a perfectly gratuitous battle engagement with a ship of war.This, however, is just what theAdventuredid. Instead of taking the hours of darkness for a discreet and quite justified withdrawal from an embarrassing situation, Kidd and his merry men impatiently watched for the first break of light in the east for a go with an enemy. After all theAdventurewas well and poetically named. Conduct of this kind makes us suppose that gain was less in the eye of these folk than rip-roaring adventuring in lawless waters.Historically, the Portuguese opened fire first on Kidd. Evidently that swart son of Lisbon had not heard from the Mocca Fleet that a wild demon was loose on the sea. When you read that the Portuguese opened first fire on Captain Kidd, you think at once of a foolish tramp going out of his way to kick a sleeping bulldog. Mr. Portuguese got a surprising rattle of shot on his bulwarks and sails. He had opened fire on the one man in all the East Indies that with more exact information he would have avoided.Kidd closed with him zestfully and for five hours they whanged away at each other, and at noon, all concerned having had a brisk workout, as the athletes would say, the two ships drew apart and went their ways, flinging shot at each other till Neptune shouldered them beyond range. Ten men of theAdventurelay about the ship with broken bodies, waiting the perhaps more dangerous ministry of ship’s surgeon Bradinham.Save for the fun of fighting here were three or four weeks wasted. A couple of these had been thrown away hanging around for the Mocca Fleet and a couple more had brought forth only the meager pilfering of a Moorish sloop. It is not unnatural then that when, after thetête-à-têtewith the warship, the craftLoyal Captainsighted and seeming to promise worth-while gleaning, was allowed by Kidd to go by scot-free, without a hand being raised, discontent began to threaten discipline on board theAdventure.
At this port of Bab’s Key, then, the Mocca Fleet was being stuffed as the fox stole smoothly upon it from the Indian Ocean. About fourteen ships made up the fleet, going in mass for safety, and chartered by the usual polyglot crowd of Dutchmen, Arabians, Moors, Armenians and so on.
While the coolies sweated and strained and hauled bundles and bales aboard, certain odd-looking strangers sauntered about the docks, marking closely the lading of the vessels. These were Kidd’s men, spies he had sent ashore to warn him of the sailing of the fleet. With desiring eyes these men watched the caravans pouring in from the interior and emptying their freights into the various holds. Rich merchandise lay spread all about,—loot that their doughty commander was to appropriate without a thank-you and distribute among their tarry palms.
Not only that, but had you gone into the low, round hills that basined the town, you would have seen lurkers there, watching keenly the work on the fleet. More of theAdventure’smen, sentineled all around by the captain as a kind of double watch. Kidd, you notice, was a man ofmethod; it was not going to be any fault of his if Bellamont and Company did not pay dividends.
Whether the presence of the spies had disturbed the skippers of the Mocca Fleet is conjectural, but when it did put to sea at length it was under both Dutch and English convoy. And in spite of Kidd’s keenness it got away without notice.
Only when morning came above the swelling deep, after two or three weeks of waiting, did the lookout cry the captain from his cabin that the fleet was passing. True enough! There over the horizon the high poops of the Mocca ships were awkwardly wagging away to safety.
Orders immediately showered the decks like the great drops of a thunderstorm. The anchor chain grated sharply against the bows while the shrouds were all at once black with racing men. A few minutes and theAdventurebegan to take the water slowly; sail after sail bellied out and quickly she leaped and ducked and flung herself upon the heels of her prey.
Fourteen ships convoyed by armed Dutch and English guards would seem a large bone for so small a terrier as the pirate boat to grasp. Something must take possession of the reason of English-speaking sailormen when combat promises, for long odds challenge rather than daunt them. Their maritime acts sparkle with just such feats as this—absurd but in a way heroic—and hadKidd had the color of law upon his work, the story of the Mocca Fleet would have echoed in generations of English schoolrooms.
Kidd certainly was grown on the tree that bore Grenville, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and the rest, even though it might have been advisable to prune him out. In quite the traditional spirit Kidd hurled his little ship at the great Mocca Fleet as casually as a boy would fling a stone into a flock of sparrows.
It might stimulate the imagination to tell how this extraordinary effort netted big gain, and how theAdventureknocked the merchantmen to left and right and plucked the fattest and richest of them from their midst, from which the captain redeemed his tropical promise to ballast his ship with gold and silver. But that would not be the fact. The difficulties were too great. After a brief peppering on both sides with round shot, the pirates were forced to drop back, and leave the fleet, frightened, fluttering but safe, tumbling on for India.
Well, it was a doughty but miscalculated start. TheAdventurerode high upon the waves instead of bulwark-deep with goodly gain. The good cheer aboard must have flagged. What, they asked one another, what if the whole commerce of this country should be organized into fleets; what would become of poor pirates? Here they were embarked in a trade at great spending of money and effort, come all the way from NewYork, only to find a great concentration of merchants against them,—surely a monopoly in restraint of trade. If this sort of thing kept up, there might be nothing for them left to do but to live up to the terms of the captain’s commission and be content to sift the loot from gentlemen of free enterprise who had been on the ground in happier and more prosperous days.
Grumbling doubtless began now, if not before, and was kept up until it ended in a sad mischance to one Gunner Moore, which deplorable accident will shortly be narrated.
Kidd now began to net the gulf for anything he could catch. They hauled in a little Moorish ship, which was but a poor sardine for the whale that had escaped. She was too small to put up a fight and Kidd just bullied her down. From her they took a few bales of coffee, some opium and twenty pieces of Arabian gold.
They also caught a “linguister.” It turns out that a “linguister” is not an article of commerce, but nothing more nor less than an interpreter, in this particular case a Portuguese person. Not a bad word that,—linguister; language rather more expressive than the scholastic interpreter.
Now you cannot ballast even a two hundred-and-seventy-ton craft with twenty pieces of Arabian gold and, refusing to believe that so poverty-stricken a craft could be in these rich reputed waters, Kidd improvised an inquisition. Some of the unfortunate captives werehung up by the wrists and beaten with naked cutlasses by way of persuading them to reveal the real treasures of their ship. Nothing so far as the record shows came of this strenuous examination. So the pirates turned them loose minus their coffee and opium and the contemptible pieces of Arabian gold.
Rough usage this, but not the ultimate of ferocity with which Kidd has been charged. For all we know, this is as far as ever the captain went in the treatment of captive crews. It may be said as well here as anywhere that there is no walking the plank or other picturesque punishments of fiction. Ships were looted and turned loose, in most instances. Those of their crews who wished to might sign up with the pirates; their officers, if not sent back to their ships, were carried to the Indian coast and dumped there.
All hands were then in no very sociable mood when the incidents of this immediate time closed with the matter of the Portuguese man-of-war.
It was on an evening soon after the taking of the Moorish ship that theAdventuresaw and was seen by a cruising Portuguese war-vessel. Now there was nothing in Kidd’s contract with Bellamont, Livingston and the rest of them which even suggested that he should take any special risk, and of course not a line thereof which could warrant him in lying-to all night to risk the company’s property in a perfectly gratuitous battle engagement with a ship of war.
This, however, is just what theAdventuredid. Instead of taking the hours of darkness for a discreet and quite justified withdrawal from an embarrassing situation, Kidd and his merry men impatiently watched for the first break of light in the east for a go with an enemy. After all theAdventurewas well and poetically named. Conduct of this kind makes us suppose that gain was less in the eye of these folk than rip-roaring adventuring in lawless waters.
Historically, the Portuguese opened fire first on Kidd. Evidently that swart son of Lisbon had not heard from the Mocca Fleet that a wild demon was loose on the sea. When you read that the Portuguese opened first fire on Captain Kidd, you think at once of a foolish tramp going out of his way to kick a sleeping bulldog. Mr. Portuguese got a surprising rattle of shot on his bulwarks and sails. He had opened fire on the one man in all the East Indies that with more exact information he would have avoided.
Kidd closed with him zestfully and for five hours they whanged away at each other, and at noon, all concerned having had a brisk workout, as the athletes would say, the two ships drew apart and went their ways, flinging shot at each other till Neptune shouldered them beyond range. Ten men of theAdventurelay about the ship with broken bodies, waiting the perhaps more dangerous ministry of ship’s surgeon Bradinham.
Save for the fun of fighting here were three or four weeks wasted. A couple of these had been thrown away hanging around for the Mocca Fleet and a couple more had brought forth only the meager pilfering of a Moorish sloop. It is not unnatural then that when, after thetête-à-têtewith the warship, the craftLoyal Captainsighted and seeming to promise worth-while gleaning, was allowed by Kidd to go by scot-free, without a hand being raised, discontent began to threaten discipline on board theAdventure.