_How a Gentleman Pirate Catches a Tartar, and the Personage in the Moon
Is Proven to Be a Woman_
I
The great brig, its rakish, slanting masts and white spars clearly
delineated against the azure of sea and sky, was gradually taking on a
somber air as the daylight slowly waned.
Everything about her, from the grim black hull with its carved and gilded
figurehead to its tapering stern and its trim lines, bespoke its true
occupation. When one thoughtfully noted the unusual spread of canvas,
weather-beaten, perhaps, but still snowy when contrasted with the deep
blue ultra-marine of the Caribbean, one felt assured that his guess was
correct. And if this mythical spectator by any chance should go close
enough to catch a glimpse of the vicious black guns peeping through the
ports, he would be doubly convinced.
This sinister vessel, clearly built for speed, was undoubtedly a pirate.
And this was but natural, for this was the eventful summer of the year
1806, when the Caribbean Sea was the cruising-ground of the most ruthless
buccaneers of any period, masking their piracy under the guise of
privateersmen; more to be dreaded than the adventurers who sought golden
galleons, treasure-chests, and captive beauties.
And what name is so boldly gilded on the stern? The _Lizette_....
The _Lizette_—Jean Lafitte. One and inseparable, or, so it is said. Jean
Lafitte, the handsome youth with tragic eyes; the daring freebooter who
is the talk of Havana, of Maracaibo, of Carthagena, and of the Mexican
Gulf from the bayous below New Orleans to the shores of Yucatan.
Jean Lafitte, who, it is said, hates all women.
The man who has successfully resisted the wiles of every siren of these
southern seas. Impossible? A pirate a woman-hater? A woman-hater a
pirate? It would seem so.... Yet the gentlemen rovers of the Caribbean
shake their heads sagely. There is something behind it all....
It is whispered that the youth with the eloquent eyes has been crossed in
love, that he has met with a disappointment, that he has turned to the
profession of piracy as the only occupation fierce enough to obliterate
his memories. Thus argue the “ladies”—the courtesans—of the Caribbean
ports.
And perhaps they are right. But they do not know that not only for
forgetfulness, but for vengeance, has this mystery man joined the
turbulent gentry of the sea—a vengeance that, after three years, still
eludes him.
The three years that have passed since Lafitte expressed to his brother,
on the beach at Mauritius, his determination to hunt out Brouillard,
have done much toward the shaping of the life of the young Frenchman.
Contrary to his expectations and wishes, Pierre Dominique had persisted
in his resolve to accompany him, and, together, they had set sail for the
Caribbean. Once there, with ample funds coupled with the knack of making
friends, it was not long before they were serving their apprenticeship in
piracy. After their first voyage they fitted up and manned a small but
speedy ship.
At the end of their second year Jean, who had taken the leadership, was
in command of a heavily armed brig whose fame was to fly the length and
breadth of every lane of the sea. At the end of their third year the
youth was a man, feared and respected by both fellow-rovers and victims.
It was not until the beginning of that third year, however, that Lafitte
got definite news as to the whereabouts and doings of Brouillard, the
object of his long search.
The former French officer, as he had anticipated, had also joined the
bands of the Brotherhood of the Caribbean. And he, too, like Jean,
had sprung to notoriety overnight, as it were. But his was an assumed
name and it was only a chance recognition of him by Pierre Dominique,
in Maracaibo, that informed Lafitte that Brouillard, the former naval
officer, and “_Le Renard Noir_” (“the Black Fox”), of whom he had heard
much but never met, were one and the same.
On ascertaining this fact, Jean had immediately sailed for Maracaibo,
to arrive and find his quarry gone. And so began a chase that lasted a
year. Whether or not the Black Fox knew that Lafitte was hunting him, or
whether it was chance that was to blame, they never met. In every nook
and corner of the Caribbean did the _Lizette_ pry her inquisitive prow,
but so far her search was unrewarded.
The _Lizette_ was only a few miles off Guadaloupe, in the hope of
falling in with some spoil-laden French privateer, which, using that
colony for the base of their operations in preying upon the British West
Indian trade, might be making for the not-far-distant harbor of Basse
Terre. With the magnificent impartiality that characterized the man,
Lafitte took toll from French ships as well as from those of any other
nationality. In these days of political change in the mother country,
Jean bore her not too much love. The Lafittes were not Bonapartists.