VIIWe turned Cape Lopez, and stopping for water at Annibo,[7]ran onward to the Cape of Good Hope, where we took a small coasting sloop, rifled her and let her go. Thence we came to Madagascar, where we made some stay. I had been here many times before in honest ships, and it was with shame that I now came in with this unlawful company.[7]Anamaboe.Not that there was anybody there whose rebuke I feared, for Madagascar was the wickedest place—outside the West Indies—in the ocean; but I was not easy for thinking that I was now one among those whom I had regarded in times past as malefactors. Three years had passed since my last visit, and piracy had swelled so much as to become a very great evil.I saw, too, so many more pirating fellows from the West Indies, for the more part Englishmen hailing first from the American provinces, but so outlandish looking a tribe one would never have known them for our countrymen except by their speech, they affecting a Spanish style with bright silk sashes, silk shirts, ruffled breeches; many wearing earrings, and not a few with heavy gold chains about their necks, the true fashion ofCaribbean sea robbers. Verily this place had become the very metropolis of rascality, the base for criminal cruises all the way to the Gulf of Aden and the coast of India.Mr. Every could not come the Madeira game here but had to pay for the provisions he bought and the cows he purchased to slaughter and salt up, for none trafficked here save with a naked blade in one hand and the price in the other.At Madagascar I took the sickness which even now afflicts me and has reduced me to the poorest state of body and mind ever a man fell into. I was too old for junketing about with pirates, being past sixty years of age, for the long deprivations and exposures of my life at sea—the inclement weather and the intolerable food I had had to endure—made me fit rather for a cottage in my native Mendip Hills, in the parish of Cheddar, rather than in so tan-chasing a fly-by-night company as cruel circumstances had put me.The ship’s doctor found at Madagascar the chance to quit our way of life and fled the ship, leaving me and a number of other sick men to suffer in our cabins, helpless on the hands of people who were more drunken than kindhearted. How often have I lain on my bed and watched the cook, unstable with rum, tacking and yawing at my threshold, likely on an instant to founder and cast the kid of hot meat upon my head!Just before we left this wicked and riotous island, one of the Caribbee pirates—an Englishman first from Boston in New England—brought to me the doctor of his ship; a sharp rascal who was sought in his own country for many crimes. This fellow bled me in two ways: one for my good with his lance, the other for his good with his pilfering fingers, for in mauling about my body he slyly stole thirty gold guineas from my belt. He said I ailed with the putrid fever and the dry bellyache. He found me with two diseases; he left me with a third, a burning rancor against the villain which can never be eased save by bleeding; and I have long carried the leech which can suck deep of his venal blood.Mr. Every now made sail for Joanna.[8][8]In the Comoro Islands, Mozambique Channel, off the Madagascar coast.“Here,” thought I when we anchored, “is a quiet place for old Bill May to die, happy that his last breath should not be drawn on a ship stolen from his king and country.”With some other sick ones I was put ashore on the beach at Joanna, where they laid us out in a row under the trees, Mr. Every deputing a few men to attend upon us. I was now quite helpless, remaining useless of hands and feet and despairing of my life. In some peace we stayed there all that night, but before noon of the next day three large ships hove in sight—East Indiamen—and Mr. Every, in the greatest fright of beingsurprised at the roadstead with half his crew ashore, ordered all hands on board and to bring the water kegs and the sick with them. They came with a great running and bustle to carry me away; but said I—“Leave me here; I have no stomach to fight those three ships; I prefer to lie here and trust myself to my fellow countrymen or to the mercy of the island negroes.”There being no time to confabulate, the men rushed for their boats without more ado, and soon theCharles the Secondwas hauled to the wind and off like a hare before the hounds.The Indiamen came to anchor and made a great business of bringing kegs and barrels for water, boats plying between the shore and the ships. I purposed to apply to them for a passage from this lonely beach and a refuge from the wicked Mr. Every, and so made me a crutch, as is were, from the bough of a tree and with it very painfully I crawled to where the work was going forward.A fat man with a red face and very white hair was commanding, whose name, a sailor told me, was Captain Edgcomb. To him I applied to be taken aboard his ship, but he—on my confessing I was from theCharles the Second—gave me scurrilous language, abusing me before all the people, and vehemently swearing that he would give me passage to Bombay—and there to thehangman. Thus the naughtiness on our ship had become the talk of all the world.“Aye,” said I, “Captain Edgcomb, sir, rather would I go down with you to Bombay and die according to the law of my country than perish here at the hands of these heathen blackamoors, or among evil pirates.”He turned away to his work, rumbling in his throat like the end of a thunderstorm.But others had compassion on me. As they came and went with their water casks some humane men brought me one thing and another to refresh me, encouraging me also with the promise that I should go away with them. At evening the last load was taken. In that boat were the doctor and the purser, both of whom said the captain would send for me to come aboard.“I am quite ready at any time,” I told them, “for all I have in the world is the clothing that hangs to my back.”So very hopefully I sat me down upon the sand and watched the sun go down to his rest beyond the far sea line; but more I gazed at the masts and yards of the three ships which stood out so bold and black against the red sky. “They will come soon,” thought I, “for they are getting ready to go,” the men being in the shrouds and out on the footropes.When it grew dark, lights jumped from porthole to porthole as the men went about the decks setting out the lanterns. I should guess the timeto have been past midnight when the anchor chains rattled and the capstan creaked and the chant of the people working it and the clatter of their bars in the drumhead sockets came across the water. “They will be here anon,” thinks I, and I got down as close to the water as I could, that they should lose no effort when the boat came in for me.But it did not come. Perhaps it was one o’clock when the ship’s lights began to move away—away and away until they went out altogether, and only a long, thin lane of moonlight lay in the wide, empty waste.My feet felt wet; I looked down and found I was standing in water up to my knees.How hard is the sea!
We turned Cape Lopez, and stopping for water at Annibo,[7]ran onward to the Cape of Good Hope, where we took a small coasting sloop, rifled her and let her go. Thence we came to Madagascar, where we made some stay. I had been here many times before in honest ships, and it was with shame that I now came in with this unlawful company.
[7]Anamaboe.
[7]Anamaboe.
Not that there was anybody there whose rebuke I feared, for Madagascar was the wickedest place—outside the West Indies—in the ocean; but I was not easy for thinking that I was now one among those whom I had regarded in times past as malefactors. Three years had passed since my last visit, and piracy had swelled so much as to become a very great evil.
I saw, too, so many more pirating fellows from the West Indies, for the more part Englishmen hailing first from the American provinces, but so outlandish looking a tribe one would never have known them for our countrymen except by their speech, they affecting a Spanish style with bright silk sashes, silk shirts, ruffled breeches; many wearing earrings, and not a few with heavy gold chains about their necks, the true fashion ofCaribbean sea robbers. Verily this place had become the very metropolis of rascality, the base for criminal cruises all the way to the Gulf of Aden and the coast of India.
Mr. Every could not come the Madeira game here but had to pay for the provisions he bought and the cows he purchased to slaughter and salt up, for none trafficked here save with a naked blade in one hand and the price in the other.
At Madagascar I took the sickness which even now afflicts me and has reduced me to the poorest state of body and mind ever a man fell into. I was too old for junketing about with pirates, being past sixty years of age, for the long deprivations and exposures of my life at sea—the inclement weather and the intolerable food I had had to endure—made me fit rather for a cottage in my native Mendip Hills, in the parish of Cheddar, rather than in so tan-chasing a fly-by-night company as cruel circumstances had put me.
The ship’s doctor found at Madagascar the chance to quit our way of life and fled the ship, leaving me and a number of other sick men to suffer in our cabins, helpless on the hands of people who were more drunken than kindhearted. How often have I lain on my bed and watched the cook, unstable with rum, tacking and yawing at my threshold, likely on an instant to founder and cast the kid of hot meat upon my head!
Just before we left this wicked and riotous island, one of the Caribbee pirates—an Englishman first from Boston in New England—brought to me the doctor of his ship; a sharp rascal who was sought in his own country for many crimes. This fellow bled me in two ways: one for my good with his lance, the other for his good with his pilfering fingers, for in mauling about my body he slyly stole thirty gold guineas from my belt. He said I ailed with the putrid fever and the dry bellyache. He found me with two diseases; he left me with a third, a burning rancor against the villain which can never be eased save by bleeding; and I have long carried the leech which can suck deep of his venal blood.
Mr. Every now made sail for Joanna.[8]
[8]In the Comoro Islands, Mozambique Channel, off the Madagascar coast.
[8]In the Comoro Islands, Mozambique Channel, off the Madagascar coast.
“Here,” thought I when we anchored, “is a quiet place for old Bill May to die, happy that his last breath should not be drawn on a ship stolen from his king and country.”
With some other sick ones I was put ashore on the beach at Joanna, where they laid us out in a row under the trees, Mr. Every deputing a few men to attend upon us. I was now quite helpless, remaining useless of hands and feet and despairing of my life. In some peace we stayed there all that night, but before noon of the next day three large ships hove in sight—East Indiamen—and Mr. Every, in the greatest fright of beingsurprised at the roadstead with half his crew ashore, ordered all hands on board and to bring the water kegs and the sick with them. They came with a great running and bustle to carry me away; but said I—
“Leave me here; I have no stomach to fight those three ships; I prefer to lie here and trust myself to my fellow countrymen or to the mercy of the island negroes.”
There being no time to confabulate, the men rushed for their boats without more ado, and soon theCharles the Secondwas hauled to the wind and off like a hare before the hounds.
The Indiamen came to anchor and made a great business of bringing kegs and barrels for water, boats plying between the shore and the ships. I purposed to apply to them for a passage from this lonely beach and a refuge from the wicked Mr. Every, and so made me a crutch, as is were, from the bough of a tree and with it very painfully I crawled to where the work was going forward.
A fat man with a red face and very white hair was commanding, whose name, a sailor told me, was Captain Edgcomb. To him I applied to be taken aboard his ship, but he—on my confessing I was from theCharles the Second—gave me scurrilous language, abusing me before all the people, and vehemently swearing that he would give me passage to Bombay—and there to thehangman. Thus the naughtiness on our ship had become the talk of all the world.
“Aye,” said I, “Captain Edgcomb, sir, rather would I go down with you to Bombay and die according to the law of my country than perish here at the hands of these heathen blackamoors, or among evil pirates.”
He turned away to his work, rumbling in his throat like the end of a thunderstorm.
But others had compassion on me. As they came and went with their water casks some humane men brought me one thing and another to refresh me, encouraging me also with the promise that I should go away with them. At evening the last load was taken. In that boat were the doctor and the purser, both of whom said the captain would send for me to come aboard.
“I am quite ready at any time,” I told them, “for all I have in the world is the clothing that hangs to my back.”
So very hopefully I sat me down upon the sand and watched the sun go down to his rest beyond the far sea line; but more I gazed at the masts and yards of the three ships which stood out so bold and black against the red sky. “They will come soon,” thought I, “for they are getting ready to go,” the men being in the shrouds and out on the footropes.
When it grew dark, lights jumped from porthole to porthole as the men went about the decks setting out the lanterns. I should guess the timeto have been past midnight when the anchor chains rattled and the capstan creaked and the chant of the people working it and the clatter of their bars in the drumhead sockets came across the water. “They will be here anon,” thinks I, and I got down as close to the water as I could, that they should lose no effort when the boat came in for me.
But it did not come. Perhaps it was one o’clock when the ship’s lights began to move away—away and away until they went out altogether, and only a long, thin lane of moonlight lay in the wide, empty waste.
My feet felt wet; I looked down and found I was standing in water up to my knees.
How hard is the sea!