Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
undoubtedly saved Mainwaring's life. As the other turned away his gaze
for that brief instant Mainwaring leaped forward and upon him. There
was a flashing flame of fire as the pistol was discharged and a
deafening detonation that seemed to split his brain. For a moment,
with reeling senses, he supposed himself to have been shot, the next
he knew he had escaped. With the energy of despair he swung his enemy
around and drove him with prodigious violence against the corner of
the table. The pirate emitted a grunting cry and then they fell
together, Mainwaring upon the top, and the pistol clattered with them
to the floor in their fall. Even as he fell, Mainwaring roared in a
voice of thunder, "All hands repel boarders!" And then again, "All
hands repel boarders!"
Whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate struggled as
though possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or two Mainwaring
saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere
about his person. The lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the
other's muscles were as though made of steel. They both fought in
despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to
kill, the other to save his life. Again and again Mainwaring felt that
the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his
shoulder, and again his neck. He felt the warm blood streaming down
his arm and body and looked about him in despair. The pistol lay near
upon the deck of the cabin. Still holding the other by the wrist as he
could, Mainwaring snatched up the empty weapon and struck once and
again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him. A third blow he
delivered with all the force he could command, and then with a violent
and convulsive throe the straining muscles beneath him relaxed and
grew limp and the fight was won.
Through all the struggle he had been aware of the shouts of voices, of
trampling of feet and discharge of firearms, and the thought came to
him, even through his own danger, that the _Yankee_ was being
assaulted by the pirates. As he felt the struggling form beneath him
loosen and dissolve into quietude, he leaped up, and snatching his
cutlass, which still lay upon the table, rushed out upon the deck,
leaving the stricken form lying twitching upon the floor behind him.
It was a fortunate thing that he had set double watches and prepared
himself for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the _Yankee_ would
certainly have been lost. As it was, the surprise was so overwhelming
that the pirates, who had been concealed in the large whaleboat that
had come alongside, were not only able to gain a foothold upon the
deck, but for a time it seemed as though they would drive the crew of
the brig below the hatches.
But as Mainwaring, streaming with blood, rushed out upon the deck, the
pirates became immediately aware that their own captain must have
been overpowered, and in an instant their desperate energy began to
evaporate. One or two jumped overboard; one, who seemed to be the
mate, fell dead from a pistol shot, and then, in the turn of a hand,
there was a rush of a retreat and a vision of leaping forms in the
dusky light of the lanthorns and a sound of splashing in the water
below.
The crew of the _Yankee_ continued firing at the phosphorescent wakes
of the swimming bodies, but whether with effect it was impossible at
the time to tell.
IV
The pirate captain did not die immediately. He lingered for three or
four days, now and then unconscious, now and then semi-conscious, but
always deliriously wandering. All the while he thus lay dying, the
mulatto woman, with whom he lived in this part of his extraordinary
dual existence, nursed and cared for him with such rude attentions as
the surroundings afforded. In the wanderings of his mind the same
duality of life followed him. Now and then he would appear the calm,
sober, self-contained, well-ordered member of a peaceful society that
his friends in his far-away home knew him to be; at other times the
nether part of his nature would leap up into life like a wild beast,
furious and gnashing. At the one time he talked evenly and clearly of
peaceful things; at the other time he blasphemed and hooted with fury.
Several times Mainwaring, though racked by his own wounds, sat beside
the dying man through the silent watches of the tropical nights.
Oftentimes upon these occasions as he looked at the thin, lean face
babbling and talking so aimlessly, he wondered what it all meant.
Could it have been madness--madness in which the separate entities of
good and bad each had, in its turn, a perfect and distinct existence?
He chose to think that this was the case. Who, within his inner
consciousness, does not feel that same ferine, savage man struggling
against the stern, adamantine bonds of morality and decorum? Were
those bonds burst asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild
beast rush forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear?
Such were the questions that Mainwaring asked himself. And how had it
all come about? By what easy gradations had the respectable Quaker
skipper descended from the decorum of his home life, step by step,
into such a gulf of iniquity? Many such thoughts passed through
Mainwaring's mind, and he pondered them through the still reaches of
the tropical nights while he sat watching the pirate captain struggle
out of the world he had so long burdened. At last the poor wretch
died, and the earth was well quit of one of its torments.
A systematic search was made through the island for the scattered
crew, but none was captured. Either there were some secret hiding
places upon the island (which was not very likely) or else they had
escaped in boats hidden somewhere among the tropical foliage. At any
rate they were gone.
Nor, search as he would, could Mainwaring find a trace of any of the
pirate treasure. After the pirate's death and under close questioning,
the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to confess in broken
English that Captain Scarfield had taken a quantity of silver money
aboard his vessel, but either she was mistaken or else the pirates had
taken it thence again and had hidden it somewhere else.
Nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most fortuitous
accident.
Mainwaring had given orders that the _Eliza Cooper_ was to be burned,
and a party was detailed to carry the order into execution. At this
the cook of the _Yankee_ came petitioning for some of the Wilmington
and Brandywine flour to make some plum duff upon the morrow, and
Mainwaring granted his request in so far that he ordered one of the
men to knock open one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook's
demands.
The crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with the
destruction of the pirate vessel had not been gone a quarter of an
hour when word came back that the hidden treasure had been found.
Mainwaring hurried aboard the _Eliza Cooper_, and there in the midst
of the open flour barrel he beheld a great quantity of silver coin
buried in and partly covered by the white meal. A systematic search
was now made. One by one the flour barrels were heaved up from below
and burst open on the deck and their contents searched, and if nothing
but the meal was found it was swept overboard. The breeze was whitened
with clouds of flour, and the white meal covered the surface of the
ocean for yards around.
In all, upward of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was found
concealed beneath the innocent flour and meal. It was no wonder the
pirate captain was so successful, when he could upon an instant's
notice transform himself from a wolf of the ocean to a peaceful Quaker
trader selling flour to the hungry towns and settlements among the
scattered islands of the West Indies, and so carrying his bloody
treasure safely into his quiet Northern home.
In concluding this part of the narrative it may be added that a wide
strip of canvas painted black was discovered in the hold of the _Eliza
Cooper_. Upon it, in great white letters, was painted the name, "The
Bloodhound." Undoubtedly this was used upon occasions to cover the
real and peaceful title of the trading schooner, just as its captain
had, in reverse, covered his sanguine and cruel life by a thin sheet
of morality and respectability.
This is the true story of the death of Capt. Jack Scarfield.
The Newburyport chap-book, of which I have already spoken, speaks only
of how the pirate disguised himself upon the ocean as a Quaker trader.
Nor is it likely that anyone ever identified Eleazer Cooper with the
pirate, for only Mainwaring of all the crew of the _Yankee_ was
exactly aware of the true identity of Captain Scarfield. All that was
ever known to the world was that Eleazer Cooper had been killed in a
fight with the pirates.
In a little less than a year Mainwaring was married to Lucinda
Fairbanks. As to Eleazer Cooper's fortune, which eventually came into
the possession of Mainwaring through his wife, it was many times a
subject of speculation to the lieutenant how it had been earned. There
were times when he felt well assured that a part of it at least was
the fruit of piracy, but it was entirely impossible to guess how much
more was the result of legitimate trading.
For a little time it seemed to Mainwaring that he should give it all
up, but this was at once so impracticable and so quixotic that he
presently abandoned it, and in time his qualms and misdoubts faded
away and he settled himself down to enjoy that which had come to him
through his marriage.
In time the Mainwarings removed to New York, and ultimately the
fortune that the pirate Scarfield had left behind him was used in part
to found the great shipping house of Mainwaring & Bigot, whose famous
transatlantic packet ships were in their time the admiration of the
whole world.
Chapter VIII
THE RUBY OF KISHMOOOR
_Prologue_
A very famous pirate of his day was Capt. Robertson Keitt.
Before embarking upon his later career of infamy, he was, in the
beginning, very well known as a reputable merchant in the island of
Jamaica. Thence entering, first of all, upon the business of the
African trade, he presently, by regular degrees, became a pirate, and
finally ended his career as one of the most renowned freebooters of
history.
The remarkable adventure through which he at once reached the pinnacle
of success, and became in his profession the most famous figure of his
day, was the capture of the Rajah of Kishmoor's great ship, _The Sun
of the East_. In this vessel was the Rajah's favorite Queen, who,
together with her attendants, was set upon a pilgrimage to Mecca. The
court of this great Oriental potentate was, as may be readily
supposed, fairly aglitter with gold and jewels, so that, what with
such personal adornments that the Queen and her attendants had fetched
with them, besides an ample treasury for the expenses of the
expedition, an incredible prize of gold and jewels rewarded the
freebooters for their successful adventure.
Among the precious stones taken in this great purchase was the
splendid ruby of Kishmoor. This, as may be known to the reader, was
one of the world's greatest gems, and was unique alike both for its
prodigious size and the splendor of its color. This precious jewel the
Rajah of Kishmoor had, upon a certain occasion, bestowed upon his
Queen, and at the time of her capture she wore it as the centerpiece
of a sort of coronet which encircled her forehead and brow.