VThe larder stuffed, the next question before the House was whither now. “Before the House” is a calculated phrase, for, by approved piratical procedure, equal franchise prevailed on theRevenge; a majority decided all general propositions; only in the particular ones of fighting, chasing or being chased was the captain’s power absolute. With their odd turn for the comic, the jolly sea robbers would often describe their conferences as sessions of the “House of Lords” or the “House of Commons”, just as they enjoyed, when carousing ashore, under the mangrove trees of the West Indies, holding mock courts for the mimic trial of one of the number for piracy, when the “Judge” would throw a tarpaulin around his shoulders for the judicial robes, and a turban on his head for the ponderous judicial wig, and the whole affair would be carried off in a quite striking parody of that judicial process which many of their fellows had already suffered under, and for most of whom the actual fact was but a question of time. Such jollities revealed an intimate knowledge of forms and manner and curiously reflected the contemporaneous severity of prosecutors and judges.The lawless business still had its laws; for instance, sea courtesy between passing pirates required salutes with loaded guns, as against the usual blanks, and in their burial rites the maritime rovers often followed their own peculiar but very particular ritual.After the usual tumultuous debate, Cape St. Vincent, Spain, was the place chosen for their happy efforts, there to intercept the lawful merchants in those fairly crowded sea lanes. The selection looked justified by an early capture. But, alas for the disappointments of life, when the cargo was eagerly examined, it was found to be merely a mass of negro slaves being rushed from the Gulf of Guinea to the American plantations, by way of Lisbon, into which the slaver had had to detour through the pressure of adverse circumstances. Little did John Gow realize, as he looked down into that fetid hold, that he was gazing upon one of the major elements of future history and the strife of armed hosts. Probably would not have cared, at that.Slaves were less desirable even than salt fish; Gow wanted no more mouths to feed. However, he could replenish his sail lockers from the brig’s canvas, as well as obtain a bagful of watches, small coins and personal knickknacks from the crew. Then, too, the gang decided that here was a good chance to be rid of a number of their unprofitable prisoners by a means not too violent. The disposition of prisoners of a pirate was aconstant problem throughout the history of the business, because, contrary to the common idea, very few pirates could bring themselves to an utter ferocity in the destruction of their victims after the guns had ceased throbbing and the smoke had curled away from the desecrated waters. The worst of them, Teach, England, Davis, Low, Lewis, all had their hours of compunction, and marooning was not hit upon as a method of wicked torture, but as a compromise to get men out of the way whom they could not feed and who would not work with them, yet without making the ship a shambles. This appears to be true, at least, of English-speaking pirates; when you come to the swart Ladrone villains, many of the Spanish, and the Chinese, there you will find the uttermost of barbarity.So a group of the forlorn mariners was transferred from theRevengeto the slaver—not at the slaver’s request—and that vessel was then allowed to proceed on its humane occasions.Lieutenant Williams could not get the point of all this solicitude for mere prisoners. He rather favored the Chinese way.A French ship next splashed around the Cape and into captivity. A neat find, being freighted with goodly store of oil and wine, even to the solid value of five hundred golden English pounds. Captured, too, like the rest of them, without a blow. As a matter of fact, a fight was exceptional rather than usual, not becausemerchant masters were cowardly, but because the pirate, often by a trick of false colors, gained a confiding approach until within close range, when he would suddenly bristle his line of muzzle-framing open ports with the snarling demand of money or life. As the old West would have put it, the pirate “got the drop” on his prey.The dour old Scotch captain, still lamenting the waste of his “fush”, now met the wheel of fortune on one of its most whimsical turns. TheRevengewas a little bored with the Scotch friend, and a quarter-deck parliament hit on the artful idea of simply making an entire change of prisoners by bodily shifting the present ones over to the Frenchman and bringing all the Frenchmen to theRevenge. The pirates felt so relieved with the newness of it all that they even gave the puzzled Scot additional sails and some small articles of ship furniture,—only Mr. Williams reserved the right to kick his departing victims down the gangway. A really nasty person, was Williams.It would be mightily entertaining, no doubt, to know what the feelings of the Scotch skipper were as he found himself thus on another man’s quarter-deck, in another man’s cabin, going through another man’s shipping papers and deeply mystified as to how he was going to explain the extraordinary situation to another man’s owners.We wonder, too, what the French owners saidwhen their ship finally reported in the person of a master with an outlandish tongue and a truly incredible yarn.The Scot bobbed away to the horizon, cogitating his own particular problems, when another ship—but of the wrong sort—came smoothly down upon theRevenge.A French warrior! Gow took her in with a long, slow glass.“Thirty-two guns,” he growled to his boatswain, “and by the looks of her decks the whole French navy’s aboard!”Down fluttered the black flag; a young panic brewed in those honest hearts, while in the prisoners’ quarters the Frenchmen could scarcely breathe for hope and fear.Gow knocked his pipe pensively out on the capstan. His was the right of decision to stay and fight or flee to fight another day. He ordered flight.“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, rather grogged up, “Run away from a frog-eater!”“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, “Run away from a frog-eater!”That meant only one thing—who would fire first? Out of his belt Williams whipped his pistol and snapped it squarely at his captain. The thing flared and fizzed and flashed feebly in the pan. Guns were tragically unreliable in those days. Ere he could recover for another shot, he went down with two balls piercing his body,—andone of them was from the weapon of old Paterson.Gow simply commanded with a slight, contemptuous inclination of the head; old Paterson and another grabbed the lieutenant for rough and ready interment in the convenient deep, but when they had pantingly hoisted the body to the height of the bulwark, it came back to vigorous life, hit about with startling force and then bolted, pistol drawn and still loaded, to the powder magazine, shouting that all hands should go down—or rather up—together. Within but a second of the most dreadful destruction, a couple of stalwarts fell heavily on the desperate wretch and lugged him away to be chained in irons and cast among the prisoners, there to be nursed, lovingly and tenderly, by those who, like all previous captives, had endured his vile whims; nursed, that is, by being used as a bench for tired Frenchmen to sit upon, and as a football for those whose cramped limbs made wholesome exercise imperative.Somehow the rogue lived,—lived until another ship was captured, or, more probably, simply detained, for, after appropriating a few portable valuables, Gow, with the consent of the crew of theRevenge, put Lieutenant Williams aboard the stranger with sharp admonition to the surprised skipper to keep him in close ward until the first English man-of-war was met, towhich he was to be delivered as a wicked pirate for yard-arm bunting.Simply speechless with astonished rage, Mr. Williams was slung aboard.But he was only one of many who had to learn that, above all things, pirates loved their little jokes, especially some delicate impertinence like this to constituted authority.
The larder stuffed, the next question before the House was whither now. “Before the House” is a calculated phrase, for, by approved piratical procedure, equal franchise prevailed on theRevenge; a majority decided all general propositions; only in the particular ones of fighting, chasing or being chased was the captain’s power absolute. With their odd turn for the comic, the jolly sea robbers would often describe their conferences as sessions of the “House of Lords” or the “House of Commons”, just as they enjoyed, when carousing ashore, under the mangrove trees of the West Indies, holding mock courts for the mimic trial of one of the number for piracy, when the “Judge” would throw a tarpaulin around his shoulders for the judicial robes, and a turban on his head for the ponderous judicial wig, and the whole affair would be carried off in a quite striking parody of that judicial process which many of their fellows had already suffered under, and for most of whom the actual fact was but a question of time. Such jollities revealed an intimate knowledge of forms and manner and curiously reflected the contemporaneous severity of prosecutors and judges.
The lawless business still had its laws; for instance, sea courtesy between passing pirates required salutes with loaded guns, as against the usual blanks, and in their burial rites the maritime rovers often followed their own peculiar but very particular ritual.
After the usual tumultuous debate, Cape St. Vincent, Spain, was the place chosen for their happy efforts, there to intercept the lawful merchants in those fairly crowded sea lanes. The selection looked justified by an early capture. But, alas for the disappointments of life, when the cargo was eagerly examined, it was found to be merely a mass of negro slaves being rushed from the Gulf of Guinea to the American plantations, by way of Lisbon, into which the slaver had had to detour through the pressure of adverse circumstances. Little did John Gow realize, as he looked down into that fetid hold, that he was gazing upon one of the major elements of future history and the strife of armed hosts. Probably would not have cared, at that.
Slaves were less desirable even than salt fish; Gow wanted no more mouths to feed. However, he could replenish his sail lockers from the brig’s canvas, as well as obtain a bagful of watches, small coins and personal knickknacks from the crew. Then, too, the gang decided that here was a good chance to be rid of a number of their unprofitable prisoners by a means not too violent. The disposition of prisoners of a pirate was aconstant problem throughout the history of the business, because, contrary to the common idea, very few pirates could bring themselves to an utter ferocity in the destruction of their victims after the guns had ceased throbbing and the smoke had curled away from the desecrated waters. The worst of them, Teach, England, Davis, Low, Lewis, all had their hours of compunction, and marooning was not hit upon as a method of wicked torture, but as a compromise to get men out of the way whom they could not feed and who would not work with them, yet without making the ship a shambles. This appears to be true, at least, of English-speaking pirates; when you come to the swart Ladrone villains, many of the Spanish, and the Chinese, there you will find the uttermost of barbarity.
So a group of the forlorn mariners was transferred from theRevengeto the slaver—not at the slaver’s request—and that vessel was then allowed to proceed on its humane occasions.
Lieutenant Williams could not get the point of all this solicitude for mere prisoners. He rather favored the Chinese way.
A French ship next splashed around the Cape and into captivity. A neat find, being freighted with goodly store of oil and wine, even to the solid value of five hundred golden English pounds. Captured, too, like the rest of them, without a blow. As a matter of fact, a fight was exceptional rather than usual, not becausemerchant masters were cowardly, but because the pirate, often by a trick of false colors, gained a confiding approach until within close range, when he would suddenly bristle his line of muzzle-framing open ports with the snarling demand of money or life. As the old West would have put it, the pirate “got the drop” on his prey.
The dour old Scotch captain, still lamenting the waste of his “fush”, now met the wheel of fortune on one of its most whimsical turns. TheRevengewas a little bored with the Scotch friend, and a quarter-deck parliament hit on the artful idea of simply making an entire change of prisoners by bodily shifting the present ones over to the Frenchman and bringing all the Frenchmen to theRevenge. The pirates felt so relieved with the newness of it all that they even gave the puzzled Scot additional sails and some small articles of ship furniture,—only Mr. Williams reserved the right to kick his departing victims down the gangway. A really nasty person, was Williams.
It would be mightily entertaining, no doubt, to know what the feelings of the Scotch skipper were as he found himself thus on another man’s quarter-deck, in another man’s cabin, going through another man’s shipping papers and deeply mystified as to how he was going to explain the extraordinary situation to another man’s owners.
We wonder, too, what the French owners saidwhen their ship finally reported in the person of a master with an outlandish tongue and a truly incredible yarn.
The Scot bobbed away to the horizon, cogitating his own particular problems, when another ship—but of the wrong sort—came smoothly down upon theRevenge.
A French warrior! Gow took her in with a long, slow glass.
“Thirty-two guns,” he growled to his boatswain, “and by the looks of her decks the whole French navy’s aboard!”
Down fluttered the black flag; a young panic brewed in those honest hearts, while in the prisoners’ quarters the Frenchmen could scarcely breathe for hope and fear.
Gow knocked his pipe pensively out on the capstan. His was the right of decision to stay and fight or flee to fight another day. He ordered flight.
“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, rather grogged up, “Run away from a frog-eater!”
“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, “Run away from a frog-eater!”
“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, “Run away from a frog-eater!”
“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, “Run away from a frog-eater!”
That meant only one thing—who would fire first? Out of his belt Williams whipped his pistol and snapped it squarely at his captain. The thing flared and fizzed and flashed feebly in the pan. Guns were tragically unreliable in those days. Ere he could recover for another shot, he went down with two balls piercing his body,—andone of them was from the weapon of old Paterson.
Gow simply commanded with a slight, contemptuous inclination of the head; old Paterson and another grabbed the lieutenant for rough and ready interment in the convenient deep, but when they had pantingly hoisted the body to the height of the bulwark, it came back to vigorous life, hit about with startling force and then bolted, pistol drawn and still loaded, to the powder magazine, shouting that all hands should go down—or rather up—together. Within but a second of the most dreadful destruction, a couple of stalwarts fell heavily on the desperate wretch and lugged him away to be chained in irons and cast among the prisoners, there to be nursed, lovingly and tenderly, by those who, like all previous captives, had endured his vile whims; nursed, that is, by being used as a bench for tired Frenchmen to sit upon, and as a football for those whose cramped limbs made wholesome exercise imperative.
Somehow the rogue lived,—lived until another ship was captured, or, more probably, simply detained, for, after appropriating a few portable valuables, Gow, with the consent of the crew of theRevenge, put Lieutenant Williams aboard the stranger with sharp admonition to the surprised skipper to keep him in close ward until the first English man-of-war was met, towhich he was to be delivered as a wicked pirate for yard-arm bunting.
Simply speechless with astonished rage, Mr. Williams was slung aboard.
But he was only one of many who had to learn that, above all things, pirates loved their little jokes, especially some delicate impertinence like this to constituted authority.