THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD.
The name of my forefather, who reigned in Guanhani when white men
first came there was the same as mine, Buonahari. He was a good
cacique, and the people loved him; he ruled the island, and none
disputed his sway. Then there was great plenty in the land; the earth
bore her fruits, and the people subsisted upon them. There were no
fish caught with hook, or spear, or net; and no birds with snare or
arrow. The people ate only what grew—the fruits of the ground and the
corn, and about the hut of each man was the field of maize which he
cultivated. Then were the gods worshipped piously—the gods who sent
the good things the people enjoyed. There were songs and dancing
through all the land. The people met in the evenings, and lighted
great fires upon the altars, and then the young men and the maidens
danced, and the old men and their wives looked on, and the Bohitos,
that is, the priests and the bards, sang songs in praise of the gods.
One night there was a great feast of singing and dancing before the
hut where my forefather, the cacique, dwelt down by the sea. All the
people of the village were there, for the cacique and the chief of
the Bohitos had caused proclamation to be made that every man and
every woman should come forth from their huts to dance and sing and
praise Zemi, the greatest of the gods.
Now, when the night was dark, and the songs of the people were loud,
the chief of the Bohitos came to my forefather, the cacique, and said—
‘Why are not all the young men at the festival?’
And the cacique answered, ‘They are at the festival; they have come
from the woods and the sea to praise Zemi.’
But the chief of the Bohitos answered, ‘Not so—look! there is a light
upon the sea.’
Then my forefather caused search to be made, but all the canoes were
drawn up upon the beach above the surf. Still there was a light upon
the sea. And the chief Bohito said—
‘It is Zemi, who looks at our festival from the sea.’
At these words all the people were glad, and redoubled their songs
and their praise. Presently a flash of lightning, and a loud roar
of thunder, came across the water, and the chief of the Bohitos and
the people were troubled, for they thought that Zemi was speaking in
anger. And the Bohito said to my forefather—
‘Saw you ever thunder and lightning so close to the ocean?’
And my forefather answered, ‘Never.’
Then sad thoughts and ominous whispers began to spread among all the
crowd; and the dances ceased, and the songs of praise died away, and
the fire went out that was kindled on the altar of Zemi. Still the
light burned bright upon the sea; and presently two lights shone; and
after that three.
‘There are three gods watching us,’ said my forefather; but the
Bohito answered never a word. None went to rest that night, but
tarried sadly on the beach waiting the day. The darkness paled away,
and the people saw three mighty shadows on the sea. The grey of the
dawn brightened into the day, and the people saw, as it were, three
great houses on the sea—houses which floated, and which spread mighty
wings to the wind, and glided to-and-fro.
At this the chief of the Bohitos was troubled, and all the people
were afraid, and kneeled down upon the beach, and prayed to Zemi;
when, behold, the houses on the sea thundered and lightened as
though they were black clouds in the air, and a great smoke rose
up from them, and came with the wind down to the beach, and the
people smelt an odour new and strange to their nostrils. But the
prodigies were not over—great canoes came forth from the floating
houses and approached the beach, and, rising from them upon the air,
there swelled a mighty strain of music and figures, with faces all
white, bearing strange weapons, which flashed in the sun, and clad
in glorious garments, whereof none knew the name, stood in the big
canoes, waving their arms and shouting in great joy.
But one of the canoes came first, and on the prow of it was a man
of a figure so goodly that he seemed a god. He stood up towering
like a giant. There was glory on his forehead—there was holiness on
his forehead. His eyes flashed like the eyes of the chief of the
Bohitos, when Zemi enters into him and fills him. He waved in the air
a glittering sword. He stretched forth his arms, and his big voice
spoke tremblingly, and as if he knew not what it said.
Nearer and nearer came the canoes. Then the man, who was as a god,
waved his sword, and they paused, and he alone walked, with a
glorious port, through the surf, which flashed beneath him, up upon
the dry sand, and there he knelt down, and prayed and wept!
But in a moment more all the white men who followed him plunged
into the water and struggled to the land. First they knelt, as the
foremost of them all had knelt, and each kissed the sand; then they
knelt round about the leader, and sought to get near him to kiss his
hand or his foot, while he stood erect among them like a palm-tree
above weeds!
This is a description of the cacique of the white strangers. He was
past the middle age, but erect as a sapling, and sturdy as a tree.
He had a thin, hard face, with a long hooked nose, and a mighty
forehead, marked with deep lines like furrows. His hair was very
short, and quite grey. He had shaggy eyebrows, and under them eyes
which pierced, and of a grey or ash colour. He had a scanty beard,
which hung in a peak from his chin, with very few hairs on the upper
lip. He was not tall, but handsome and strong. On his head he wore
a hat looped with golden chains and crowned with feathers, and his
garments were all glittering and glorious, and in his right hand he
ever held the naked sword! When the white strangers knelt to him, and
when my forefathers saw the grandeur and majesty of his face, they
felt he was a god, and they knelt likewise—the chief of the Bohitos
and also the cacique. So the white cacique stood erect above them all.
Then the white men placed in the sand an upright stick with a shorter
stick crossing it, and all baring their heads, sang a loud song very
solemn and slow, looking up to heaven, and making a cross with their
fingers on their foreheads and their breasts.
Meantime the cacique and the chief of the Bohitos advanced with fear
and trembling, and prostrated themselves before the great white
cacique. But he raised them with kind looks and gentle-sounding
words, and put into their hands treasures—bright flat stones, in
which whoso looked saw his own face looking back at him—and hollow
vessels like shells, but bright and glittering, which made merry
music when they were shaken in the hand. In exchange, the cacique and
the chief of the Bohitos gave what they had, maize and the cloth of
the cotton-tree. Presently, the white strangers touched the golden
plates which hung from our forefathers’ ears, and asked by signs
where the gold came from? and our forefathers pointed towards where
Cuba and Hispaniola lay across the sea. At this the white strangers
smiled to each other, and were pleased. The multitudes followed
them whithersoever they went, and when the even was come, and the
sun going down, the white men passed again in their great canoes to
the floating houses with wings, in which they lived on the sea. Our
forefathers accompanied them with songs and rejoicings in their small
canoes, and the great white cacique, standing high above the ocean,
waved them farewell, while the lightning flashed and the thunder
rolled from the floating house beneath him.
And this is the story of the first coming of white men, as my
forefather, the cacique, who saw them, told it to my forefather, the
next cacique, who was carried by them a slave to dig for gold in
Hispaniola.
CHAPTER THE LAST.
I MEET OLD FRIENDS.
Weeks passed slowly away. Twice a day, in the morning and the
afternoon, I mounted to the summit of the highest rock in the island,
looking anxiously round for sails, and there, by consent of the
Indians, who felt secure in their hiding-place, I piled up a great
mass of brushwood, ready for firing as a signal, in case of any
English vessel approaching. During these long solitary watches I
thought much of my life since I had been carried a prisoner to the
West Indies. I thought how many great dangers I had undergone, how
many narrow escapes I had made, and I began gradually to entertain
the idea whether, upon an opportunity offering, I had better resume
a buccaneering life, or set out across the Atlantic for home. I
said to myself, ‘I will not return penniless as when I went forth.’
The pearls left to me by poor Rumbold were, as he said, worth fully
one thousand pounds, and I doubted not but that my share in the
booty captured in the Carthagena galleon, I owning one-third of the
schooner which took her, as well as being second officer on board,
would come to something very considerable. Here, then, were means
upon which I could at once return and bring happiness and wealth to
the firesides of Kirkleslie. I brooded over these things much. Lying
in the shade of my brushwood pile, watching the buzzing sparkling
insects which shot hither and thither in the air—the dragon-fly
poising his lithe body, and the brightly painted butterflies
flitting from flower to flower, I pondered and turned the question in
my mind. My old habits of castle-building came back upon me, and I
erected two splendid edifices upon the foundation of the subtle air.
The first was of my lot if I remained in the West Indies, or joined
the bold adventurers who were pushing across the isthmus of Darien,
to launch upon a career of fortune in the South Sea. I pictured
myself the commander of a stout ship of war, nay, the admiral of a
fleet of stout ships of war, carrying fire and sword into Panama,
Payta, or Acapulco, capturing Spanish galleons by the squadron, and
dictating terms to the captive governors of overthrown cities. Then,
as I lay thinking, and watching the gorgeous proportions of this
air-painted dream, it faded away, and another and a humbler vision
rose; it represented the green fields and white beaches of the fair
coast of Fife—the straggling cottages of Kirkleslie—the pier of
whinstone, stretching forth seawards—the little rippling bay, where
the Burn of Balwearie poured its frothing waters into the brine—the
green bourocks of bent and waving grass, which surrounded it, marked
with their brown patches of dry herring nets, and the rocking boats,
riding to their grapnels in the bay. Then I saw approaching the shore
a stout brig, lofty in her rig and graceful in her form, and I saw
the fishers, and their wives, and their bairns, all running down to
the beach, and shouting, with joyful clamour, that here was come
Leonard Lindsay’s new brig, the Royal Thistle, fresh from the stocks
at Leith.
And there was another consideration too. It is sad to remember it
now, but it was joyful to dream of it then. I had a long tryste at
Alicant, and I thought how proud I would be, in my own stout ship, to
carry my betrothed from her Spanish city to the northern home which
she had chosen and which she would love.
If both of these plans were, in the ending, empty and vain, at least
one was built on a less airy foundation than the other. I determined
not to grasp at overmuch. I decided not to let go the substance for
the shadow, and at length I started up from the grass, and with a
heart light as that of a boy let loose from school, I shouted, ‘Home,
home! the rough winds and the rugged coasts of Scotland before all
these teeming lands and summer seas!’
Having once formed this resolution, I was miserable until I had the
means of putting it in execution. From the grey dawn to the grey
eve I sat upon my watch-tower on the hill; sometimes the Indians
accompanied me, and we talked touching the only subject on which
they cared to converse—the past glories of Guanhani, and the future
happiness of Coyaba. Sometimes I was alone, tossing restlessly upon
the turf in my impatience, wondering whether all vessels had ceased
to sail the sea, since I saw none,—plucking out my flint and steel
every quarter of an hour, to take care that all was ready for firing
the beacon at a moment’s notice; or noting any change in the slant of
the tradewind, which might cause a vessel to diverge from her course
between the islands and the main. Several times I attempted to patch
up the broken boat of the ‘Saucy Susan,’ which lay upon a sheltered
bit of beach, with the tide flowing in and out of her, but she was
injured beyond my powers as a ship carpenter to repair, and besides,
had she been afloat and sound, I had nothing of which I could make a
sail. The Indians possessed a canoe, but only fit for paddling.
During these tedious weeks, I strained my memory in vain to make out
whether I had ever heard of such an island as that on which I stood.
In most of the maps of the Caribbean Sea, small specks of nameless
isles are laid down in great profusion all round Cape Gracias à Dios,
but I knew that these charts were, for the most part, to be little
depended upon, except as regarded the great islands and headlands;
and I remembered the labyrinth of rocks, islets, and reefs, in which
we found the dwarf pilot, and which were not even indicated in any
one chart we had on board the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’ The Indians said,
that the time of ships coming hither was very uncertain; sometimes
two or three passed by in a moon, sometimes two or three moons passed
by during which the sea would be sailless; now a passing ship would
keep far off, so that her canvas would show not bigger than the wing
of a sea-fowl; anon she would anchor in the lee of the island, and
lie there for days, filling her water-casks from the rain ponds in
the hollows of the rocks, and allowing the men to scamper at large,
hunting pigeons and noddies, or searching for turtles’ eggs, all over
the island.
But at length my happy moment arrived—the long-looked for came
at last. I ought to have mentioned, that the island upon the
windward-side was indented by a large bay, which stretched from one
extremity of the land to the other. In the centre of this bay, and
near the beach, were various rocky islets and sand-banks, amongst
which on arriving I had been driven, and upon each horn of the
crescent, long points of high and rugged rock jutted forth into
the sea, making that appear a deep bay which was in reality a mere
shallow coast indentation. My signal-post, as I called it, was near
the centre of the bay, and about a mile from each of the jutting and
rocky horns which I have mentioned; the hut of the Indians being
among the clefts and bushes beneath.
I was wakened early one morning by the howl of the wind through the
trees and precipices above us, and, presently going forth, found
it blowing a hard gale right into the bay—the rocky islets before
the beach being only now and then to be seen like black specks amid
the foam. The gale increased as the day advanced, and about noon, a
tremendous breaker swept so high up the beach as to catch the wreck
of the ‘Saucy Susan’s’ boat, and fairly to drive it to pieces on the
shingle. The day was very dark and dismal, the clouds flying fast and
low, and the sea-birds making, in flocks, for the cover of the land.
The horizon from my look-out was only a few miles in extent, but
within it, the seas broke furiously, and the surf upon either horn
of the bay was grand to look at. In the afternoon, I wandered forth
alone upon the beach—the Indians, who did not relish such weather,
keeping snug at home—and remained for hours in a sheltered nook upon
the southern ridge of the bay, watching the great seas rolling in and
assaulting the rocks.
The day was wearing away, and the sun was setting behind the island,
when I suddenly heard a shout to seaward. Starting up to my feet, I
saw about a cable’s length distant from the bluff, on the outside of
the bay, and a little to windward, a small sloop, showing but a rag
of sail, and struggling hard to weather the point. The bark, though
very small, was decked from stem to stern. Had it not been for that,
she would not have lived a moment in such a sea. As it was, she bent
over, so that I could see three men lying upon the slanting planks,
holding on to the weather-rigging, while the steersman, made fast on
the weather side to a staunchion of the light rail, which run round
the sloop, worked the tiller by means of blocks and tackling. It was
an even chance, so far as I could see, whether the sloop would beat
round into the bay, or be shivered upon the headland, and I rushed
as far out as I could upon the rocks to watch the catastrophe. On
she came, plunging and tearing over the seas, hove up aloft, so that
she was sometimes almost on a level with the ground I stood on, then
ducking into the trough, so that I could only see the top of her
tiny mainsail, with the spray of the next coming sea, torn up by the
wind, and pelting over and over it. The figures on board held on to
the weather-bulwarks, like grim death; but as she closed nearer and
nearer with the rocks, I saw two of them kick off their shoes, and
strip their doublets. A moment would now decide their fate. The sloop
was not half-a-score fathoms from the outermost point, over which
the sea boiled white. She sank heavily into a deep foaming trough of
sea, and her sail flapped in the lull. Up again, as though cast by a
sling! She leaped at the next surge—a blast which made me stagger
back on the rocks—almost tearing the mast out of her, and lifting
her, as it were, bodily over the furiously ridging and tumbling
water. The wave burst in milk-white foam beneath, the spray flying
round and over me, but from the very centre, as it appeared, of the
seething hissing mass of the rebuffed and broken billow, the gallant
little bark flew triumphantly round the rock, and into the bay.
‘Hurrah,’ I shouted; ‘bravely done!’
The men on board caught my words, even through the roar of the surf.
He who was steering, and who had been hitherto crouching down,
watching the run of the seas, looked up. Could I believe my eyes?
Nicky Hamstring!
‘Lindsay! Will Thistle! Hurrah!’ he shouted.
‘Comrade—old comrade!’ I cried, making a speaking-trumpet of my
hands. ‘Beach her—run her right through the surf. High and dry—high
and dry!’
The sloop was already beyond hearing, but Nicky waved his hand. Up
goes the helm, round fly the bows of the bark towards the open white
beach of the bay, and shorewards she shoots, leaping from sea to sea!
Leaping indeed from sea to sea, but not faster than I sprung from
rock to rock, and bank to bank, striving to be upon the beach
before her. It was a grand race. I saw Nicky’s crew leap up, as the
sloop, now upon an even keel, went scudding like a feather before a
hurricane. More sail—more sail! They are shaking out two reefs in the
canvas! They will drive her through the breakers in style! Away goes
the widened sheet higher and higher up the mast! See how it swells,
and tugs, and surges, as though it would pluck the craft out of the
water by the very roots, and drag and soar with her through the air!
I am running fast, but she heads me. See, Nicky is standing in the
stern, and again he waves his hand! Is it in token of hope, or of
farewell? A minute will end all. The sloop flies madly into the line
of breakers! A sea comes white over and over her! No! she is not
down; up she staggers on the crest of the following wave, pouring the
water from her sides, and her crew still clinging steadfastly round
the mast. On she goes—a dusky spot—a mere tossing morsel amid the
wallowing surf, but the brave mast still holds on, the stout canvas
still bears her onward, like a bird! There, down into the trough
once more, and now aloft again on the very shoulder of a breaking
sea, which has hove her up, as a strong man swings a child, and then
bearing her recklessly on, dissolves beneath her keel, in a tumbling
avalanche of creaming foam, in the centre of which the sloop is
carried triumphantly up, upon the wreaths of sea-weed at the very top
of high water-mark, and there, as the sea recedes, is left high and
dry! No Deal boatmen ever beached a galley more admirably after a
wild trip to the Goodwin Sands.
The next moment I had both Nicky Hamstring’s hands in mine! Such a
meeting! It was as if he had fallen from the moon upon me! And what
a world of inquiries to put to each other. How had I come there?
How had he come there? For five minutes it was nothing but such
rapid question and answer! Then quoth I, ‘And Stout Jem, and the
“Will-o’-the-Wisp?”’
‘They cannot be five miles to windward,’ replied Nicky, ‘and running
the same course as we when we saw breakers ahead, and beat round into
the bay. The sloop is a Spanish craft we wanted to carry to Jamaica,
and we were in company with the schooner all day, until she split her
foresail; after which we got the start, and lost sight of her.’
By this time it was getting dark, the gale still blowing furiously.
‘We none of us had the slightest idea of land within a hundred
miles,’ said Nicky. ‘I would to God that we had the means of giving
Stout Jem notice of what he is running on, while he has still a mile
or two of offing.’
I immediately remembered my beacon of piled brushwood, and thanked
heaven that I had collected it. But as we were all scampering up
the hill towards it, we met the two old Indians coming down to the
beach. From a snug place of espial they had seen the meeting between
Nicky Hamstring and myself, and rightly conjecturing that they had
nothing to fear from one who seemed so much my friend, they had come
forth to offer a refuge to the wrecked mariners. Accordingly, leaving
them to conduct two of the sailors whom I did not know, to the cave,
the third being no other than my old shipmate, Lanscriffe, who shook
hands with me heartily, he and Nicky and I were speedily standing
beside my beacon. It was now quite dark, and seawards we could descry
nought beyond the dull white belt of breakers. A light was speedily
struck, and in a minute after it was applied; the brushwood being
as dry as tinder, a bright blaze, torn and driven by the wind, rose
flickering up into the dark night, casting long rays of light over
the waving grass and bushes, and the white and tumbling sea. I had
made the pile of brushwood so large, that the beacon was nothing but
a great bonfire, and presently the two seamen we had left rejoined
us with the Indians, carrying between them a small tar barrel which
they had made shift to get at out of the stranded bark, the tide
having now ebbed considerably back from it. This was a grand addition
to our beacon, and, fed by the fat pitchy unguent, the blaze must
have been seen leagues away. That it was seen by those for whom we
lit it we soon had a satisfactory token, in the quickly following
flashes of several guns, fired by a vessel near a league off at sea.
Upon this we descended to the beach again. The Will-o’-the-Wisp,
for Nicky Hamstring did not doubt but it was she, presently ran up
lanterns to her main and topmast heads, and, in a few moments more,
she burned a flaring blue light, which showed the beautiful schooner
weltering through the seas close hauled under closely reefed fore and
mainsails, but, as we all hoped and believed, holding her own very
steadily.
As we sat watching her upon the beach, Nicky Hamstring recounted to
me the particulars of the attack upon Carthagena harbour after I
had been made prisoner, and the subsequent capture of the galleon.
My share of the booty was, it seems, lodged in the hands of Mr.
Pratt, at Jamaica, and would be at once made over to me. To narrate
all the particulars of the cruise of the Will-o’-the-Wisp after I
quitted her, would be no part of my story, and I dismiss it by simply
stating, that so many and so great were the prizes which she took,
that not a man who sailed under Stout Jem but was, according to his
degree, enriched, and returned to Jamaica with money, and plenty of
it, in both pockets.
Talking in this manner, the first part of the night wore away, and,
as it waxed late, the gale began to lull. You may be sure in all our
converse we never took our eyes from the schooner’s lights, which
rose and sank regularly upon the seas. But we were soon relieved
of our anxiety regarding her, by observing that she rather clawed
away from the shore than approached it, and we knew well that not
an eye would be closed aboard the schooner that eventful night.
About midnight the heavy clouds to windward began to break, and the
schooner burnt another blue light, by which we saw that she had a
reef out of her sails, and was standing on and off snugly enough, the
sea going down very fast.
Thereupon we all retired to the cave, the Indians doing the honours
of their abode with such simple grace, that Nicky called them two
brown old gentlemen without clothes, and swore that he would run the
risk of being wrecked again to be so kindly tended. It was indeed a
happy meal! Lanscriffe and his comrades had gone down to the stranded
ship, and returned laden with good cheer, and every few minutes, as
we ate, and drank, and laughed, one of us would start up and run out
to see how the schooner fared, and come back with the news that the
wind was going down more and more, and that our friends were all
safe, a league from the rocks, and riding as snugly as though the
schooner were lying in a millpond.
‘And all the old faces are still on board?’ quoth I.
‘Every one of them,’ answered Nicky; ‘all our old party of the
Marmousettes in Hispaniola, from Stout Jem down to Blue Peter, and,
indeed, almost every man we shipped in Jamaica, including Mr. Bell,
who hath become such a reformed character, that it seems as if that
keel-hauling, which you remember, has had the most beneficial effect
in washing the roguery out of him.’
‘And the negro,’ says I; ‘the Spanish negro, we captured fishing for
pisareros off Carthagena?’
‘Oh! he was sent ashore with the sailors of the galleon, who, I hear,
landed at Porto Bello.’
‘There was,’ says I, ‘on board that galleon, one old man, a merchant—’
‘He who told Stout Jem that you had escaped from the Spaniards at
Carthagena—a grave and reverend old man,’ said Nicky. ‘He bore his
loss so tranquilly, that I thought, and others thought it too, that
he went over the side of the galleon into the boat with some of the
most precious parts of his goods concealed upon, his person. A sly
old fox, to be sure.’
To tell the truth, I was not sorry to hear this.
‘We got enough from him as it was, Nicky,’ I said.
‘Humph!’ quoth Nicky, ‘I must say we did.’
The grey dawn found the schooner anchored in the bay, and before
sunrise Nicky and I, having obtained the canoe of the Indians for the
purpose, leaped on board.
I almost shook Captain Jem out of his hammock, into which, poor man,
he had only just turned, after seeing that all was safe with the
ground tackle, and that the weather looked settled.
‘Captain Jem! Captain Jem!’ I cried; ‘you told the merchant on board
the galleon, that you loved me as a son, and here is your son come
back again to you!’
I will not try to reduce to words the shout of delight with which
the hearty old fellow jumped clean out of his hammock, and clutching
my hands in both of his, danced me round and round the little cabin.
It was a thorough welcome home, and almost induced me to falter in
my resolution of immediately returning to Scotland. But the feeling
lasted but for a moment. I loved my comrades, but I loved kith and
kin more, and now I had that to carry back to them which would bring
grateful tears to many an eye.
And now my story is told.
I have bidden a solemn farewell to the representatives of the blood
of the old caciques, and the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’ is under weigh, bound
direct for Jamaica, from whence I can easily procure a passage home.
Her buccaneering cruise, of which I saw so little, is ended. She lies
deep in the water, freighted with the spoils of the proud Spaniards,
who vainly swore that theirs alone would be the empire and the
treasure of the New World. Her merry crew will shortly be dispersed,
and never rock in hammocks in one ship again. Stout Jem is bound
for Europe, and mayhap we will go together. Nicky Hamstring, true
to his opinion, that the New World is a merrier one than the Old,
talks of enlisting under the banner of Captain Morgan, to march with
him across the mountains to the great South Sea. Each has his plans,
and every man’s plan is different from his neighbour’s. May they all
prosper!
And now I bid my readers a kind good by!
I have told them roughly, but truly, as much of my life as was the
‘Story of a Buccaneer.’ If they have found it stirring enough to
while away a leisure hour, I am content. But if from it they have
learned something of the real truth concerning Buccaneers, how the
order sprung naturally from the greed of the Spaniards to make a
monopoly of America—how the Buccaneers lived by sea and land—how
they hunted, and sailed, and made war—how there were good and bad,
honest hearts and rogues among them—in short, if they have learned
what manner of men the Buccaneers were, and what manner of lives they
led—then I shall be more than content; I shall think that I have
served the memories of my brave countrymen who sleep beneath those
western seas, and that I have given to the world some information,
not without its uses, touching an interesting chapter of our maritime
history.
THE END.
Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg iii Added comma after: OF MY BOYHOOD, AND HOW
pg iv Added missing page number 89
pg 6 Changed gallantly. At night-fall to: nightfall
pg 7 Changed leeward fore-topsail yardarm to: yard-arm
pg 14 Changed would not render up a marevedi to: maravedi
pg 16 Changed After which the quarter-master to: quartermaster
pg 38 Added period after: hate Jack Spaniard
pg 39 Changed spelling of: in the expedition in which l’Olonais to:
l’Olonnais
pg 43 Changed For the Sea, the mosquito men to: Mosquito
pg 76 Changed ‘“Ay, nevvy,” quoth the old captain, to: Nevvy
pg 90 Changed therefore of quite sufficent to: sufficient
pg 101 Changed which lay close a-beam to: abeam
pg 104 Changed I had the midwatch to: mid-watch
pg 109 Changed I hope, never bear to: hear
pg 137 Changed Will-o’-the Whisp to: Will-o’-the-Wisp
pg 142 Changed “Breakers on the weather bow to: ‘Breakers
pg 142 Changed all clear with the anchor.” to: anchor.’
pg 142 Changed “Down with your helm to: ‘Down
pg 143 Changed great labyrinth of sandbanks to: sand-banks
pg 149 Changed “So you landed here to: ‘So
pg 149 Changed “Call you that seamen’s to: ‘Call
pg 152 Changed schooner if you don’t wan’t to: want
pg 152 Changed have been allowed on board.” to: board.’
pg 156 Changed schooner in the morning.” to: morning.’
pg 162 Changed “Where is the dwarf?’ to: ‘Where is the dwarf?’
pg 167 Changed sprit of the main-sail to mainsail
pg 167 Changed dollars, reals, and marvedis to: maravedis
pg 168 Changed And we echood to: echoed
pg 168 Changed screamed joyously over-head to: overhead
pg 168 Changed glances of the hot sun-light to: sunlight
pg 169 Changed wavy bunches of slimy seaweed to: sea-weed
pg 171 Changed mass of slushy seaweed to: sea-weed
pg 172 Changed him very nervously, fidgetting to: fidgeting
pg 176 Changed Meantine the sky was growing to: Meantime
pg 177 Added letter e after: dwarf as we heard this. H
pg 191 Changed chapter heading DICE IS KEELHAULED to: KEEL-HAULED
pg 193 Changed towards the stern, which heightenng to: heightening
pg 208 Added period after: and there was silence
pg 212 Changed while below was a great beauffet to: buffet
pg 214 Added quote after: sign that the waters are abated.
pg 218 Changed trust we may say our vepsers to: vespers
pg 225 Changed Tomorrow I was to appear to: To-morrow
pg 225 Changed out a squadron of their armadillos. to: armadilloes
pg 229 Changed at the rate of a brass marvedi to: maravedi
pg 232 Changed in the harbour of Cathagena to: Carthagena
pg 232 Changed rescue single-handed, griped to: gripped
pg 233 Removed repeated word from: pirate shall die the the
pg 236 Removed repeated word from: and which shall shall now be
rehearsed
pg 242 Changed pretended to be, in some agitatation to: agitation
pg 244 Changed which I eagerly asisted to: assisted
pg 251 Changed track to tell of who has cleft to: left
pg 257 Added missing word in: I have landed from a vessel the bay
pg 263 Added missing chapter title: THE FAMILY OF THE SPANISH
MERCHANT.
pg 265 Changed devil incarnate, whom they call Mountbars to: Montbars
pg 266 Changed ‘Ay, verily,” to: ‘Ay, verily,’
pg 267 Changed he answered that tomorrow to: to-morrow
pg 268 Changed arching of her dark eye-brows to: eyebrows
pg 272 Changed I will marry only you.” to: you.’
pg 275 Changed “Eavesdropper!’ to: ‘Eavesdropper!’
pg 277 Added quote after: everywhere for Joseffa, but——
pg 280 Changed Spaniard would keep all to himseif to: himself
pg 280 Changed these adventurers oft-times to: ofttimes
pg 317 Changed from sun-down to sun-rise to: sundown to sunrise
pg 325 Removed repeated word from: even the the most skilful
pg 329 Changed Disco himself, a Musquito Indian to: Mosquito
pg 332 Added period after: firing pistols in the air
pg 334 Changed The Mosquitto man merely shrugged to: Mosquito
pg 341 Changed thickened speech and blood-shot to: bloodshot
pg 343 Changed short run down by the Mosquitto coast to: Mosquito
pg 346 Changed rules of privateers-men to: privateersmen
pg 348 Changed pitiful hound of a Portugee to: Portuguese
pg 349 Changed from the mizenmast to: mizen-mast
pg 349 Changed teach a cowardly Portugee to: Portuguese
pg 350 Changed and his ancles to: ankles
pg 361 Changed Tonquil entered it unbidden. to: Torquil
pg 362 Changed single quote to double after: and bidding, shall
overwhelm him.
pg 362 Changed “Look you, Torquil Randa,’ to: ‘Look you, Torquil
Randa,’
pg 362 Changed “whoso in this galley to: ‘whoso in this galley
pg 372 Changed was that villainous Portuguee to: Portuguese
pg 381 Changed avoid all pirates, flebustiers to: flibustiers
pg 383 Changed and whom they called ‘Captain to: “Captain
pg 388 Added quote before: Well, captain, you know
pg 388 Added quote after: Oxford Road shall cry,
pg 391 Changed taken under stout L’Olonnais to: l’Olonnais
pg 392 Changed ‘Here be what I like,’ voicferated to: vociferated
pg 392 Changed shirks overboard after the Portuguee to: Portuguese
pg 397 Changed ‘Amen! am en!’ to: amen
pg 399 Changed Dios, the great head-land to: headland
pg 406 Added quote after: near me a broken boat.
pg 422 Changed Spanish craft we wanted to carry to Jamaics to: Jamaica
pg 424 Added hyphen to: cruise of the Will-o’-the Wisp
pg 426 Added quote after the letter o in: and the ‘Will-o-the-Wisp’