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LEONARD LINDSAY
OR
_THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER_
BY
ANGUS B. REACH
“NO PEACE BEYOND THE LINE.”—_Old Sailors Proverb_
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE
NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
OF MY BOYHOOD, AND HOW, BEING CAST AWAY AT SEA, I AM
CARRIED TO THE WEST INDIES AGAINST MY WILL 1
CHAPTER II.
OF MY ESCAPE FROM THE FRENCH SHIP, AND MY LANDING IN
HISPANIOLA 18
CHAPTER III.
I JOIN A BROTHERHOOD OF HUNTERS AND ADVENTURERS ON
THE COAST 27
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE LIFE OF A BUCCANEER 39
CHAPTER V.
HOW WE ENCOUNTER GREAT DANGERS, THE SPANIARDS
ATTACKING US 44
CHAPTER VI.
HOW THE DEADLY FEVER OF THE COAST FASTENS ON ME 58
CHAPTER VII.
THE BUCCANEERS TIRE OF THE LIFE ON SHORE, AND DETERMINE
TO GO AGAIN TO SEA 64
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LEGEND OF FOUL-WEATHER DON 73
CHAPTER IX.
THE AUTHOR, WITH SUNDRY OF HIS COMRADES, SET OUT FOR
THE CREEK WHERE HE LEFT HIS BARK, AND THERE
BRAVELY CAPTURE A SPANISH SCHOONER 89
CHAPTER X.
THEY RETURN WITH THE PRIZE TO THE MARMOUSETTES, AND
NICKY HAMSTRING SHORTLY RELATES HIS HISTORY 103
CHAPTER XI.
THE BUCCANEERS PRESENTLY SET SAIL IN THE SCHOONER
FOR JAMAICA, WITH A RELATION OF THE EVENTS WHICH
HAPPENED THERE 110
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE DEATH OF AN OLD FRIEND 125
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BUCCANEERS SAIL FOR THE SPANISH MAIN, AND ARE
CHASED BY A GREAT SHIP OF WAR 131
CHAPTER XIV.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE UNKNOWN SHOALS AND THE
DWARF PILOT 140
CHAPTER XV.
AT LENGTH THEY CATCH THE DWARF PILOT, AND HEAR
STRANGE THINGS TOUCHING A TREASURE 157
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW THE DWARF TURNS TRAITOR, AND OF HIS FATE 170
CHAPTER XVII.
OF THEIR UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR THE SUNKEN TREASURE—WEARYING
AT LENGTH OF THE UNDERTAKING, THEY
PURSUE THEIR COURSE—THE LEGEND OF ‘NELL’S BEACON,’
OR THE ‘CORPUS SANT’ 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
A KNAVE OF THE CREW PLAYING WITH COGGED DICE IS
KEEL-HAULED 191
CHAPTER XIX.
WE CRUISE OFF CARTHAGENA AWAITING THE GALLEON, AND I
FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE SPANIARDS 205
CHAPTER XX.
I AM TRIED AND TORTURED BY THE SPANIARDS 220
CHAPTER XXI.
HOW I ESCAPE FROM THE SPANISH GUARDHOUSE—AM CHASED
BY BLOOD-HOUNDS IN THE WOODS, AND HOW AT LENGTH
I FIND A STRANGE ASYLUM 243
CHAPTER XXII.
THE FAMILY OF THE SPANISH MERCHANT 263
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW WE SAIL TO JOIN THE PEARL FLEET, AND THE NEGRO
DIVER’S STORY 282
CHAPTER XXIV.
MY ADVENTURES AMONG THE PEARL FISHERS, AND MY ESCAPE
FROM THE FLEET 303
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PIRAGUA IS PICKED UP BY A GREAT PRIVATEER, AND I
FIND MYSELF AMONG NEW SHIPMATES 338
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE LEGEND OF THE DEMON WHO HAUNTS POINT MORANT
IN JAMAICA 357
CHAPTER XXVII.
WHAT HAPPENS ABOARD THE ‘SAUCY SUSAN’—AND THE ENDING
OF HER AND HER CREW 369
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FOODLESS BOAT AND THE ISLAND 397
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD 412
CHAPTER THE LAST.
I MEET OLD FRIENDS 416
LEONARD LINDSAY;
OR,
THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER.
CHAPTER I.
OF MY BOYHOOD, AND HOW, BEING CAST AWAY AT SEA, I AM CARRIED TO THE
WEST INDIES AGAINST MY WILL.
It was in the fair sunlight of a May morning, in the year of Grace
1672, that that great brave ship, the Golden Grove of Leith, hoisted
her broad sails, with many a fluttering pendant and streamer above
them, and stood proudly down the Firth of Forth, designing to reach
the open ocean, not far from the hill, well known to mariners by
the name of the North Berwick Law. On board of the Golden Grove, I,
LEONARD LINDSAY, then in my twenty-second year, was, you must know,
a sailor, and I hope a bold one. My father was a fisherman, and, as
I may say, his coble was my cradle. Many a rough rocking in truth it
bestowed upon me, for it was his use even before I could go alone,
to carry me with him a fishing, wrapped up, it may be, in a tattered
sail, while my mother, with a creel upon her back, journeyed through
the landward towns, and to the houses of the gentry, to sell the
spoil of hook and net.
We fared hard and worked hard; for no more industrious folk lived
in the fisher-town of Kirk Leslie, a pleasant and goodly spot,
lying not far from the East Neuk of Fife, than old Davie Lindsay
and Jess, his wife and my mother. Many a weary night and day have
come and gone since I beheld that beach whereon I was born; but I
can yet shut my eyes and see our cottage and our boat—called the
“Royal Thistle”—rocking at the lee of the long rough pier of unhewn
whinstone, gathered from the wild muirs around, which ran into the
sea and sheltered the little fisher harbour, formed by the burn of
Balwearie, where it joins the waters of its black pools to the salt
brine. Opposite our house was a pretty green bourock, as we called
it, that is to say, a little hill, mostly of bright green turf, with
bunches of bent and long grass, which rustled with a sharp sad sound
when the east wind blew snell, and creeping cosily into the chimney
neuk, we would listen to the roaring of the sea. But the bourock was
oftentimes brown with nets or with wet sails stretched there to dry,
and below it there lay half-buried in the sand, old boats, mouldering
away and masts and oars all shivered, bleaching like big bones in the
sun and the rain.
I remember old Davie Lindsay my father well. He was a stern, big man,
with a grisly grey beard, shaved but once a month. No fisher on the
coast had a surer hand for the tiller, or a firmer gripe to haul aft
the sheet of the lugsail in a fresh breeze and a gathering sea. Often
when we were rising and falling on the easterly swell, half-a-score
miles from Kirk Leslie pier, he loved to tell me old-world tales and
sing old-world songs of the sea. Then would he recount how the Rover
sunk the bell which good abbot Ignatius, of Aberbrothwick, caused to
be placed upon the wild Bell Rock, as a guide to poor mariners; and
how the pirate dreed the weird—that is, underwent the fate—he had
prepared for himself, and was lost with ship and crew on that very
reef. Sometimes, too, he would drop his voice, and when I came close
to him, he would speak of great monsters in the sea; of the ocean
snake, whose head looked up at the bridge of Stirling, and whose tail
went nine times round the Bass; of singing mermaids, who come upon
the yellow sands at night, and beguile men with their false lays,
till they leave house and home, being bewitched by the glamour of
elfin palaces under the brine; and, most terrible of all, of phantom
ships with crews of ghosts, which sailors see by the pale glimmerings
of the moon, when it shines through the driving scud, upon a mirk
midnight and a roaring sea. But, then, if I was frightened and cried,
my father would straightway change the theme, and burst out with a
strong clear voice into some loud fishing-song, or, what I loved
better still, into some brave, ancient ballad, about the fair kingdom
of Scotland, and its gallant kings and stalwart knights; and of such,
my favourite was the lay of Sir Patrick Spens, for he was both a
knight and a sailor.
“The king sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine,
O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this ship of mine?
“Then up and spake an eldern knight,
Sat at the king’s right knee,
Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever sailed the sea.”
Oh, I can yet hear my father’s strong voice rising over the dash of
the water and the moan of the wind, as he sung the brave voyage of
Sir Patrick to Norroway, to bring home the king’s daughter; but his
tones would sink and grow hoarse and low, when he chanted the storm,
and the perishing of all the fair company on the voyage home.
“O forty mile off Aberdeen
’Tis fifty fathom deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.”
My father’s long home was also the bottom of the sea. One wild March
day, the coble left Kirk Leslie pier without me. I staid at home
mending a dredge-net with my mother. The easterly har was on the
coast, that is to say, thick cold mists and a keen wind. As the sun
rose high so did the tempest; we could see nought seaward, for the
grey fog was out upon the water, but every wave came white, over
and over the pier, from end to end. My mother went to and fro, wan,
and praying to herself; as indeed did many another fisher-wife, for
they had great cause. The night was awful. I sat cowering beside my
mother, who was rocking herself on a settle with her apron over her
head; or now and then stole down to the beach, to where men stood
with lanterns upon masts to show the harbour mouth to the poor folks
at sea. Three boats, with crews pale and worn, made the land before
the day; an hour after dawn our coble came tossing to the outside
belt of the surf—but she was bottom upwards.
In a month after this, my mother and I went to her father’s, a very
old man, and a reverend elder of the kirk. He sent me to school to
Dominie Buchanan, a learned carle, who by his own account behoved to
be of the race of the great Geordie Buchanan, of whom they tell merry
tales, which surely are idle and false, for he was a severe, grave
man, and handled the tawse unmercifully, as his royal pupil, gentle
King Jamie, could in his time well testify. At school I was diligent,
and pleased master and friends.
Afterwards, up to my sixteenth year, I went much a fishing in the
boat of Saunders Draugglefute, my maternal uncle, when desiring
to see more of my country than could be descried in our furthest
voyages between Kirk Leslie pier and the deep-sea fisheries at the
back of the Isle of May, I made many coasting trips, for the space
of near five years, in the stout brig Jean Livingstone, belonging to
Kirkaldy, during which time I twice visited the Thames and the city
of London; plying also once each year with a great cargo of herrings
to Antwerp, in the Low Countries. But still I wished to see the world
further from home, and to this intent preferred rather to go on board
the Golden Grove of Leith, as a common sailor, than to be mate of the
Jean Livingstone, a promotion which was offered me by John Swanson,
skipper and part owner of the brig.
The reason of my coming to think of the Golden Grove was, that the
Jean Livingstone having a cargo of goods from Yarmouth to Edinburgh,
lay while they were delivered close by the great ship, then preparing
at the foot of Leith Wynd for a voyage to Italy, and from thence to
divers ports on the Moorish side of the Mediterranean sea. Now Italy
was a land which I had long wished to behold, as being once the seat
of that great people the Romans, some knowledge of the poetry and
philosophy of whom, the worthy Dominie Buchanan had not failed to
instil into me, but which I ofttimes felt with pain to be fast fading
from my mind. Indeed, I must tell you that it is to the exertions
of that learned man that this narrative is altogether owing, for
he, seeing, as he was pleased to say, a more congenial soil in my
mind for the seeds of his instructions than was presented by the
other fisher-boys, took great pains to imbue me with a love for the
humanities, which has not deserted me entirely unto this day. After
much pondering upon my prospects, I therefore finally made up my mind
to offer myself on board of the Golden Grove, which I did, and was
accepted without more ado. My friends would have me pause and think
of the dangers of unknown coasts, and pirates and robbers of the sea,
but I knew Captain John Coxon, of the Golden Grove, to be a stout
and experienced seaman, and one who was readily trusted with rich
freights—while as to freebooters, when I looked upon the array of
culverins, demi-culverins, and falconets ranged upon the decks, and
also the show of carabines and patterreroes placed about the masts,
with many stout fellows to man and wield them, I felt we could bid
defiance to any rover who ever sailed out of Sallee.
Therefore, to make a long story short, we completed our cargo,
took in provisions and water, and, as has been said, on a fine May
morning, I do not remember the exact day, sailed. The wind was so
fair that by even-fall we saw St. Abb’s Head.
And here at the outset of what was to me so adventurous a voyage,
I would describe my captain and my shipmates, as well as the
stout vessel herself, the latter being indeed a brave craft, with
top-gallant forecastle and high poop, surmounted by three great
lanterns; but, as the reader will shortly perceive, the Golden Grove
and I soon parted company, and I never saw either her or any of her
crew again.
We carried the fair north wind with us all along the English coast,
until passing through the straits of Dover, we bade farewell to
the white cliffs. Then in two days’ time we saw upon the larboard
bow great rocks which form the cape called La Hogue, in France,
and passing to the westward of the island of Guernsey, sighted the
little isle of Ushant lying off the port of Brest, where the French
maintain fleets and great naval stores. Hereabouts the wind changed,
veering round to the westward, and speedily rolling in upon us
billows so vast that we could well discern that we were no longer in
the narrow seas, but exposed to the great strength and fierceness
of the Atlantic or Western ocean. Notwithstanding, however, we made
good progress; the breeze was not steady but blew in squalls, making
it often necessary to hand topsails, and raising great seething
seas around us, over which the Golden Grove rode very gallantly.
At nightfall, on the eighth day of our voyage, we lost sight of
Ushant and entered into the great Bay of Biscay. The sea here runs
exceedingly high, tumbling in to the shore in great ridges of blue
water; but with a stout ship, well manned, the nature of the waves is
not so dangerous as that of the short, boiling surges in the North
Sea. And now I come to the accident which so sadly determined my lot
for many a day.
On the morning of either the 13th or the 14th of May the weather was
squally and unsettled, and the sea irregular and high. About eight
o’clock, looking forth to windward, I saw a great blackness in the
sky, which I took to be the prelude of a gust of no common strength.
At the same moment, the mate of the watch ordered the topmen aloft
to hand the topsails, we carrying at the moment no higher canvas. My
station was upon the leeward fore-topsail yard-arm, and as I clung
by the man-ropes to the great creaking pieces of timber, grasping the
fluttering canvas of the sail, I thought I had never seen a finer
sight than the great rolling ship below, wallowing and labouring
in the white foaming seas, which would sometimes strike her and
pour heavy masses of clear green water in a flood over the decks.
When we were securing the sail, the motion aloft was very great, we
being violently swung from side to side in such wise as might well
make giddy even the grizzled head of an old mariner. Meantime, the
gust to windward was coming fast; the blackness increased, and a
rushing sound, as of the chariot wheels of a host, rose above the
rude clamour of the sea. Then, amid great showers of flying brine,
which it drove before it, the fierce wind struck the Golden Grove
bodily over upon her side. At the same instant, I heard a hoarse
voice below summoning the men from the yards down upon deck; but as
I was about to obey, the tempest grew terrible. There were great
clouds of mist above me, through which I could see nought below but
the white patches of waves breaking over the strong bulwarks of the
ship. Suddenly the canvas, which had not been quite secured, was torn
open, as it were, with a loud screech by the wind, and flapped and
banged so that I felt the very mast shake and quiver violently, while
I received rude blows from the loose and flying ropes, insomuch as,
being half blinded by that and the pelting of the brine, I shut my
eyes, and bending down my head grasped the yard firmly in my arms. I
might have remained thus three or four seconds, when I heard the loud
howl of the wind suddenly increase to a sort of eldritch scream. In a
moment, the mast gave two violent jerks, and with the third I heard
five or six sounding twangs like the breaking of harp-strings, and
immediately a crashing of wood. Then, still clinging to the yard, I
was hurried with a mighty rush through the air, and suddenly plunged
down into the choking brine, which rose all gurgling over my head,
and I knew at the same time that the Golden Grove had carried away
her fore-topmast, and that I was overboard in the boiling sea.
By instinct, I suppose, I struggled so to climb upon the floating
wreck as to get my head and shoulders above water. Then I saw that
I was alone in my misery. I have said that my station was at the
outer end of the yard, and I conceive that my shipmates must have
gained the top, and from thence, I hoped, the deck. But as for me, I
saw nought but speedy drowning for my fate. The seas rose in great
foaming peaks and pyramids around me, and the wind drove drenching
showers from the crests of the waves down into the hollows. All
around gloomy clouds passed swiftly, torn by the squall, but the
pitchy darkness which showed where its strength lay, was far down to
leeward, and looking thereat as I rose upon a higher sea than common,
I faintly descried the ship in a crippled plight, but having managed
to put her helm up so as to scud before the storm. She was already
near a league away, and leaving me fast; so that the bitterness of
death rose up in my very heart. For a moment I thought I might as
well die at once, and letting go my hold of the spars, I allowed
myself to sink backward into the sea. But God has wisely made man
to love life with a clinging love, and to grapple with death as
with a grim enemy. Therefore, as the water closed above me, and I
felt suffocating, I could not help making a struggle, which soon
replaced me on my desolate seat on the floating wreck. I looked at
the spars, and saw that the topmast had broken only about a foot
beneath the place to which the yard had been lowered. Nearly the
whole of the foretop and the top-gallant masts of the Golden Grove,
with the fragments of the foretopsail, which had been rent almost
into ribbons, and the yard to which they were fastened lay therefore
in the sea. I clambered in from the end of the yard, and took up my
position where the mast and it crossed each other; making myself fast
thereto with one of the numerous ends of broken rope which abounded,
and for near an hour sat dismal and almost broken-hearted, unheedful
of how the waves tossed me to and fro, or how they sometimes burst
over and almost stifled me. I was somewhat roused by a feeling of
warmth, and looking abroad saw that the clouds had broken, and that
the sun was shining brightly on the sea. The wind was also abated,
and the waves not combing so violently, I was more at ease. Then I
heard that terrible sound—the sound of the sea alone—which no one
who has listened to save he who has swam far from any vessel, or
who, like myself, has clung to a driving spar. On the beach you hear
the surf, where the waves burst upon rock or sand; on shipboard you
hear the dashing of the billows on counter and prow; and, above them
all, the sigh of the wind and the groaning of timbers and masts.
But to hear the sea alone, you must be alone upon the sea. I will
tell you of the noise: it is as of a great multitudinous hiss,
rising universally about you—the buzz of the fermenting and yeasty
waves. There are no deep, hollow rumblings; except for that hissing,
seething sound, the great billows rise and sink in silence; and you
look over a tumbling waste of blue or green water, all laced, and
dashed, and variegated with a thousand stripes, and streaks, and
veins of white glancing froth, which embroider, as it were with lace,
the dark masses of heaving and falling ocean. Hearing this sound, and
seeing this sight, I tossed until the sun got high and warm. I felt
no very poignant anguish, for my soul was clothed, as it were, in a
species of lethargy—the livery of despair. Sometimes only I tried to
pray, but thoughts and tongue would grow benumbed together.
Once, indeed, I was for a time aroused. I heard a sharp little
dash in the water, and a soft quackle, as of a sea-fowl. Looking
up, I descried beside me two ducks of that species which we, in
the Scottish seas, called marrots; they are white on the breast
and neck, and brown above, and have very bright, glancing, yellow
eyes. Moreover, they dive, and use their short wings under water,
as other fowls do theirs in flying. By the appearance of these
creatures I knew that land was, at farthest, within two days’ sail.
There—tilting gaily over each sea—they swam for hours, seeming to
look at me; sometimes they would dive, but they never went far from
the wreck, always coming up and riding head to wind, with their keen
yellow eyes fixed as I thought upon the poor drowning mariner. They
seemed tame and fearless—for, indeed, what should they dread from me?
Once, in a sort of melancholy mirth, I raised my arm threateningly,
but they stirred neither wing nor leg to flee, lifting over seas
which would make a great man-of-war work and groan to her very keel,
but which these feathered ships, built by God, could outride without
a film of down being washed aside from their white breasts.
The sun having attained its zenith began to descend the westerly
skies, and the afternoon was fair and warm, the wind now blowing
but a summer breeze. Sometimes, when on the crest of the swell,
I looked anxiously for a sail, but I saw nought save the bright
horizon, against which the sharp outlines of the waves rose and fell
in varying curves and ridges; so that now again I resigned myself to
death, and covering my face with my hands, I, as it were, moaned,
rather than sung inwardly to myself, many verses of psalms, which,
when I was but a little child, I had repeated at my mother’s knee.
Meantime, I began to feel a stiffening and a heavy drowsiness over
all my limbs and upon my soul. When I opened my eyes the heaving
waters turned into divers colours before my sight, so that I knew
that my brain was wandering, and that my soul was departing. Howbeit,
a holy tranquillity came down upon me. The blue sea appeared to
melt away, and I saw—but dimly—the green bourock and the sweet soft
swarded links of the Balwearie burn, with the brown herring nets
drying on the windy grass. The place seemed holy and still; the
sun was hot, and none were stirring, and presently I knew it was a
summer’s sabbath day, for from out the open windows of the grey old
kirk there came a low sound of psalmody, and I heard, as it were, in
my brain, the voices of the congregation, as they sang—
“In Judah’s land God is well known,
His name in Israel’s great,
In Salem is his tabernacle,
In Zion is his seat.”
After this, there came on me silence and darkness, I having gradually
fallen into a fit or trance.
I was roused by rude shocks and pulls, and a confused clamour of
voices. Opening my eyes with effort, I saw surging upon the broken
water, close to the spars, a ship’s boat with men, one of whom—he
who rowed the boat oar—had grasped the collar of my sea doublet, and
was hauling me into the pinnace, in which effort he succeeded, ere
I could well make out whereabouts I was. At the same time several
voices asked, in two different languages, what was my name and
country, and how I came there. Now, of both of these tongues I had
some smattering, the one being French and the other Low Dutch, of
which I had heard and picked up somewhat in my several voyages up the
river Scheldt to Antwerp.
I therefore, trying to muster my senses, replied truthfully that my
name was Leonard Lindsay—that I was a Scotsman, a mariner of the ship
Golden Grove, of Leith, wherefrom I had fallen overboard, the spar
to which I clung having been, as, indeed, they might perceive, blown
away in tempestuous weather.
At this they consulted in a low tone amongst themselves. They were
all seafaring men, mostly very swarthy, and tanned by the sun and
the wind. They wore long black hair, and silver and gold earrings,
which glanced amid their greasy curls. Only two were fair and
blue-eyed—namely, the men who first addressed me in Flemish or Dutch.
After remaining for a brief time beside the spars, and seeming to
consult as to whether they were worthy to be made a prize of, they
decided in the negative, and dipping their oars into the water, rowed
away, the steersman narrowly watching the run of the seas, so as to
avoid being broached-to and swamped. In the meantime, I had clambered
from the bottom of the boat, and looking over the bows, saw, not more
than a third of a mile from us, a bark, which appeared to be both
small and frail to contend with such a sea. The manner of her rig was
new and strange to me, for she carried two masts, both very stout
and short, and above them were two great supple yards, upon which
was spread a good show of canvas, each sail being of that triangular
form, called by the seamen who use them, lateen. In fine, the ship
belonged to a port on the Mediterranean coast of France, and was of
the class named feluccas.
It was necessary to approach the vessel with great caution, inasmuch
as she rolled and surged excessively. We therefore came slowly up,
under her lee-quarter, and a man, of very dark complexion, and the
fieryest eyes I ever saw, jumped up upon the gunwale, and hailed the
boat in French, but talking so rapidly, that I could make nothing of
it. Then, a line having been thrown on board, it was made fast to me,
and without more ado, I was soused into the sea, and dragged on board
the felucca, where I lay panting on the deck, while the crew—very
wild and fierce-looking sailors—amused themselves with my wretched
appearance. Presently, however, the man who had hailed the boat,
and who seemed to have great authority on board, came up to me, and
putting the rest aside, said more deliberately than before, but still
in French, and with a peculiar accent—
‘You are not, then, a Spaniard?’
I mustered my few words of French, and answered, that—‘I was not, but
a Scotsman.’
Without more ado, he stooped over me, and searched my pockets.
They contained some small English coins, being groats and silver
pennies, and also a letter, which Captain Swanson, of the Jean
Livingstone, had written to me to Leith. The sight of these things
appeared to satisfy his doubts, for he spoke a few words in a kinder
tone to those about him, and presently leaving me, a man dressed
in a tarnished livery, like a lackey, brought me a great cup of
hot distilled waters, which I greedily swallowed, and found myself
comforted and refreshed. Being, however, much exhausted from the
length of time which I had passed in the water, I laid me down upon
a heap of sails in the forecastle, and being taken but little notice
of, thanked God, inwardly, for my deliverance, and began to drop off
to sleep. Only beforehand, like a sailor, I observed the course of
the ship. The wind being westerly, and she being close hauled, and
labouring heavily to windward, I deemed, and with truth, that her
destination must be across the Atlantic. But whithersoever she went,
with my then feelings, mattered little; I was saved from an early
death, and grateful for my escape, I fell into a deep and dreamless
sleep.
When I wakened it was dark night, and the first watch was set. As
the wind, however, was now very steady, and the sea not only lower
but regular, the men were mostly lying and dozing about the deck,
except he that conned and he that steered. Seeing me stirring, a
sailor presently came to me with a lantern in his hand, and, to my
great joy, addressed me in English, asking me from whence I came,
and the particulars of my disaster. Having shortly informed him, I
requested that he would tell me what the ship was, which had rescued
me, and what manner of treatment I might expect at the hands of the
captain and crew. At first, he made as if he would put off talking of
these matters, but as I was importunate, he asked me in turn, whether
I had not heard of the great association of men of all nations,
but principally Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Hollanders, who carried
on a constant warfare with the Spaniards among the islands of the
West Indies, and along the coast of Darien, sometimes even crossing
that narrow neck of land, and descending with fire and sword upon
Panama and other towns of the South Sea. To this I replied, that
certainly I had heard of these companies, but only very partially
and nothing distinctly, that they were, I supposed, the adventurers
called Flibustiers or Buccaneers, and more anciently the ‘Brethren
of the Coast.’ My new friend made answer moodily, that I should most
probably have ample means of learning more of these Freebooters ere I
put my foot on British ground again—‘That is,’ says he, ‘after you
have either escaped or served your time.’
These phrases naturally threw me into great trouble, and I earnestly
asked what he signified by them.
‘Why,’ he replied, ‘that you will be sold as an apprentice, or in
other words, as a slave, to the French West India company, in the
Isle of Tortugas, on the northern coast of Hispaniola, whither we are
bound.’
At these words I grew sick at heart. ‘Better,’ I said, ‘to have
allowed me drown in that sea than to have rescued me only to sell me
into slavery.’
‘Not so,’ answered my companion, something sternly. ‘You are young,
and have a thousand hopes before you. The Hand that miraculously
preserved you this day is ever stretched out in wisdom and mercy,
readier to help than to chastise.’
At this I could not avoid looking steadfastly at my Englishman; such
phrases being little apt to fall from the lips of sailors. By the
light of the lantern, I saw that he was a tall and stout old man,
with something of great grandeur, as I thought, in his high brow and
serene eyes. He could not have been much younger than sixty-five, but
he was still a very strong great man, with a presence and bearing
not like those of a wild sailor who has lived, as I may say, all his
life with his hands in the tar-bucket. After some pause he went on to
inform me, that besides himself there was no Englishman amongst the
crew, and that he counted upon being safely put ashore at Tortugas,
from whence he could get to Jamaica; for, as he said, he was not
unknown to the hunters and privateers who frequented the former
island. In reply to my entreaties, that he would endeavour to take me
with him, he said it was not possible; for although the captain might
consent, yet that many of the crew were greedy low fellows, who would
not render up a maravedi of the profits, to which, by the articles of
the voyage, it seems that they were all in some sort and in different
proportions entitled.
‘But be thankful,’ said my comrade, ‘that you are not a Spaniard;
for had you but a drop of the blood of that people in your veins, a
speedy death would be the best fate you could hope for on board a
ship commanded by Louis Montbars.’
‘Why,’ said I, ‘is he so inveterate against the people of Spain?’
‘I find,’ returned the Englishman, ‘that you do indeed know little
of the adventurers of the West Indies, if you have never heard of
one of the most noted captains of them all. He is a gentleman of
good birth, of Languedoc in France. In his early manhood, having
taken great interest in reading various relations of the barbarities
committed by the Spaniards upon the ancient and inoffensive Indians,
the inhabitants of the islands and the main discovered by Christopher
Columbus and his coadjutors and successors, Montbars, being, like
many in the South of France, a man of warm and fierce passions and
feelings, made a solemn vow to God and the Virgin, that the whole
of his future life should be devoted to the task of revenging upon
every Spaniard who might be placed in his power the injuries received
at the hands of their fathers, alike by the fierce Charibs of the
islands, and the gentle Peruvians of the main. To this intent, he
spent all his patrimony in fitting out a ship, in which he sailed
to the West Indies, and speedily made his name so famous, and so
terrible to the Spaniards, that they call him in their language, ‘The
Exterminator,’ and know that they can hope for not one moment’s life
after they come into his power. In general,’ pursued my informant,
‘he is grave, staid, and courteous, unless his mind run upon what
I cannot but think the sort of bloody madness wherewith he is
afflicted. And then, indeed, and more especially when in action with
the Spaniards, he demeans himself more like a raging demon than a
Christian man. He has lately had occasion to visit his native land,
and I being also in Paris on my own business, and hearing that he
proposed to set forth again, joined him as a mariner, but to be put
ashore after the voyage at the island of Tortugas.’
This was the substance of our conversation that night After which the
quartermaster came to me, and saying, he understood that I had been
a fisherman in my youth, and so must needs know how to make nets;
and that they were in want of some seine nets for use in the keys
or small islands of the Indies, I might therefore, by making them,
pay my passage. To this arrangement I very willingly acceded, and
the next day had a hammock assigned to me, and set about my task of
net-making, which was pleasant enough, pursued in fine weather upon
the deck; although, indeed, my heart was heavy and sore with thinking
of what was before me.
I soon discovered that my Englishman’s appellation, by which he
was known, was Richard Wright, although that was not, indeed, as I
afterwards found, his proper name. The crew were now reasonably kind
to me, and the more so because Wright, whom they seemed to respect,
took me in some sort under his protection, and upon the whole I found
myself not ill off. The Captain mixed very familiarly with the men,
as is common on board of privateers, and sometimes he would recite
to them tales of the cruelties of the Spaniards to the Indians; how
in Hispaniola the numbers of these latter were reduced in fifteen
years from a million to sixty thousand; how the Spaniards worked
them to a miserable death in the gold mines, or hunted them with
blood-hounds through the mountains, feeding the dogs only upon the
victims’ flesh; how the Spaniards would often kill these miserable
people for mere diversion, or for wagers, or to keep their hands
in, as they called it; and how many of these white savages had made
a vow—ay, and kept it—that, for a certain time, they would destroy
thirteen Indians every morning before breakfast, in honour of our
Saviour and the twelve apostles! With such relations, and all of them
I believe to be true, would Montbars seek to stir up the deadly wrath
of the ship’s company against the Spaniards. But, in truth, this was
a flame which required but little fanning, it being my opinion that
had the Spaniards behaved like angels rather than demons, still the
great body of ordinary Buccaneers would be content to treat them
as the latter, so long as they possessed fair towns and rich mines
ashore, and many treasure-ships and galleons at sea. Notwithstanding,
however, it must be confessed that there never being a nation more
proud, cruel, and arrogant than these Spanish—at least, in all that
refers to their American dominions—so there never was a people more
justly to be despoiled of their ill-gotten gains.
But these are considerations apart from my narrative. Our voyage was
reasonably prosperous, the west wind having soon given place to more
favourable breezes, and at length, but not until after many teasing
calms, which delayed our progress, the first welcome farmings of
the trade wind caught our sails, and we glided swiftly towards the
setting sun, over the great heaving ocean swells and undulations,
from whose shining sides flying fishes would leap briskly forth, and
within which, the water being wondrously clear, we usually saw, on
looking over the low bulwarks of the bark, swift dolphins, which swam
round and round us, even when our ship was sailing three leagues an
hour, and many smaller fishes, one individual of which, called by
sailors a bonetta, about a foot long and of a reddish colour, swam
for three days and three nights just before our cutwater, so that the
men began, as it were, to know that fish, and used to feed it with
crumbs from the end of the bowsprit.
About the 6th of June, the weather being then very hot, with light
breezes, we crossed the line, as it is called, not of course the true
equator or equinox, but the tropic of Cancer. This was, according to
the custom of the sea, a great festival on board, those who had not
passed that way before being obliged to submit to the ceremony of
baptism, as they call it, which was performed after the manner then
in use amongst French ships, as follows:—
The master’s mate dressed himself in a strange sort of garment,
fashioned so as to be ridiculous and burlesque, and reaching to his
heels, with a hat or cap made to match. In his right hand he held a
great clumsy wooden sword; in his left a pot of ink. His face he
had besmirched with soot, and he wore an uncouth necklace made of
strings of blocks or pulleys, such as are used in the rigging for
ropes to pass through. Thus accoutred, all the novices knelt down
before him, while he favoured the shoulders of each with a smart
slap of the sword, smearing also a great cross upon his brows, or
sometimes over all his face with the ink. Immediately after, the
novice was drenched with dozens of buckets of water, and the ceremony
ended by his depositing his offering, as they call it, of a bottle
of brandy, which must be placed in perfect silence at the foot of
the mainmast. For myself, I underwent the mummery with the rest, and
had, fortunately, sufficient in my pocket to contribute my bottle of
brandy. One of the Hollanders on board told me that their mode of
baptism was different; they either insisting upon a ransom, according
to the station of the novice, or hoisting him to the main yard and
from thence dropping him into the sea three several times. ‘If,
however,’ said my informant, a simple man, ‘he be hoisted a fourth
time in the name of the Prince of Orange, or of the master of the
vessel, his honour is reckoned more than ordinary.’ In case of the
ship—I speak still of the Hollanders—never having passed that place
before, the captain is bound to give the mariners a small runlet of
wine, which if he neglect to do, they maintain that they may cut the
stem off the vessel. But in French and in Dutch ships, the profits
accruing from the ceremony are kept by the master’s mate, and spent
upon the arrival in port, in a general debauch by all the seamen.