CHAPTER I

IN THE WAKE OF

THE BUCCANEERS

BY

A. HYATT VERRILL

AUTHOR OF “PANAMA, PAST AND PRESENT,” “ISLES

OF SPICE AND PALM,” “THE BOOK OF THE WEST

INDIES,” “THE REAL STORY OF THE PIRATE,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS AND

PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND

RARE OLD ENGRAVINGS ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.

NEW YORK AND LONDON ☙ ☙ MCMXXIII

INTRODUCTION

There is no more entrancing body of water in either the Western or the

Eastern Hemisphere—than the Caribbean Sea, with a fringe of lovely

tropical islands on the one side and on the other the Spanish Main and

its picturesque centuries-old towns and fascinating sights. Aside from

its beauty, its delightful climate, and its ever-shifting scenes, the

Caribbean and its shores are redolent of romance. It was the

starting-point of those brave though ruthless adventurers who carved a

new world for Castile and Leon. For centuries it was the treasure-house

of the world and the battle-ground of the mightiest European powers.

Across this sapphire sea sailed the caravels of Columbus, the Golden

Hind of Drake, and the stately, plate-laden galleons of Spain.

And across this same sea coursed those fierce sea-rovers the

buccaneers.

Of all the dare-devil spirits who sailed the Caribbean and ravaged the

Spanish Main, the buccaneers were the most picturesque and romantic.

Villains though they were; reddened with the blood of the innocent and

helpless though their hands; black-hearted cutthroats beyond denial—yet

there is something about them that appeals to all, and that, despite

their ill deeds, fills one with admiration.

Perchance it is the fact that we all appreciate bravery—and,

notwithstanding their multitude of sins, the buccaneers were brave

beyond compare. Again, it may be that in all of us lurks a little of

the gambling spirit and we admire those who can take a chance, even

though we do not, and no greater gamblers ever lived than the

buccaneers. They staked their lives at every turn, they gambled with

death, and the greater the odds the more readily did they throw

themselves into the game. And it was this gambling spirit, this

recklessness that enabled them to defy the world of their day.

We hear much of the bold, wild ways of these adventurers; we have been

taught by history and tradition to consider them devoid of redeeming

qualities, and few of us realize that the buccaneers were far from

being true pirates, that they were not alike, that many were corsairs

through force of circumstances rather than by choice, that they had

their own laws and code of honor, and that they were a most important

factor in shaping the destiny of the New World. To them, incredible as

it may seem, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Had it not been for

them the British never would have retained their foothold in the

Caribbean, and we, to-day, might be under Spanish rule. Many of them,

too, were educated men and left us records which are of incalculable

scientific or historic value; for example, Dampier, who was a keenly

observant field naturalist and devoted far more of his time to penning

descriptions of fauna and flora than to slitting Spanish throats; [1]

and Esquemelling, [2] the erstwhile accountant, who left us a classic

as a result of his years as a ship’s supercargo among the buccaneers.

Yearly, Americans by the thousands flock southward to tour or to stop

for a time in the West Indies or about the shores of the Caribbean, but

few of these are aware of the intimate associations with the buccaneers

which all these places hold. Yet we may dwell in the very hostelry

wherein pirate chieftains reveled and spent their ill-gotten gold; we

stroll through little towns which have echoed to the ribald songs and

lusty shouts of roistering pirate crews; we sail, in palatial

steamships, above the long-forgotten hulks of burned and scuttled

galleons, and we haggle with shopkeepers or native boatmen in whose

veins may flow the blood of Morgan, Hawkins, or Montbars.

Bereft of the buccaneers, the Caribbean and its shores lose their

greatest fascination, and as the most desirable localities are those

intimately associated with the sea-rovers and their deeds or misdeeds,

it seems fitting to travel about the Spanish Main and the West Indies

in the wake of the buccaneers.

It is to point out the romantic associations of these waters and

islands and make a visit to them more interesting, to weave a little of

the lives and deeds of the buccaneers into the story of the locality,

and to give brief sketches of the most noteworthy, while at the same

time describing the places, their attractions, and their present

condition, that this book has been prepared.

So much of a purely fictional nature has been related of these

sea-rovers that many of the statements contained herein will come as a

distinct surprise, for time and tales have woven a glamour and a deal

of misconception about them. But even stripped of all romance, with

their histories before us, the “Brethren of the Main” retain enough and

to spare of adventure, deeds of daring, and picturesque villainy, and

many of the true stories of these men are more thrilling, more

astounding than any the imagination could invent.

When such stories are made more vivid by a setting of actual

present-day scenes, or are read in the very places and in the same

surroundings in which the buccaneers held forth, their interest is

enhanced, while the whole neighborhood is given an added attraction.

The author, who has lived and traveled in the West Indies and about the

shores of the Caribbean for nearly thirty years, knows every island and

town intimately. Being deeply interested in the history of the vicinity

and particularly in the reckless freebooters who frequented it, he has

written this narrative of a most novel cruise. A cruise taken in a real

pirate ship manned by a native West Indian crew some of whom were

lineal descendants of notorious buccaneers; and while not all the

Caribbean islands or the lands and towns of the Spanish Main were

visited, those places are included which are of particular interest

from an historical point of view and their associations with the

freebooters.

The volume is not intended as a guide-book, but rather as a colorful

account of the places visited on this unusual cruise; a description of

many little-known, out-of-the-way corners; with mention of their most

interesting features, the customs of the people, a bit of their

turbulent past and their somnolent present, and their existing relics

of buccaneer days.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

I Among the Caribbees 3

Reasons. The romantic isles. The Vigilant. A real pirate ship. The

Virgin Islands. Dead Man’s Chest. Sam, the descendant of the pirate

chief. The Vigilant’s crew. Trouble comes to the Vigilant.

Arguments. My happy family.

II St. Thomas and Its Past 22

First view of St. Thomas. Charlotte Amalie. The people. Shops and

commodities. The home of bay-rum. Wet and dry. Odd wares. The

ships’ graveyard. Blackbeard’s Castle. The pirates’ haunts.

III The Buccaneers in the Virgin Isles 38

The lairs of the buccaneers. Buccaneers and pirates. Queer

conditions. When life was cheap. Interesting characters. A

buccaneer poet. Blackbeard and his ways. The end of Blackbeard.

IV On the Way to St. John 58

Farewell, St. Thomas. Sail Rock. The joke on the Frenchman. The

lure of the Caribbean. A man of peace. St. John. An island gem. At

Rendezvous Bay. Relics of the buccaneers. The bloody past. A

deserted Eden. The St. John of to-day.

V St. John and Some Discoveries 77

Buccaneer haunts. The pirates’ friends. Hamlin the corsair. The

friendly governor. Tales of treasure. Relics of the past. An

ancient souvenir. Reminiscences. The concert. A discovery.

VI Anegada and a Bit of Treasure-Trove 94

Tortola, the Isle of the Turtle-dove. The once prosperous port.

Onward to Anegada. The Fat Virgin. Norman Island and Kidd’s

treasure. The truth about Captain Kidd. The Don Quixote of the

Caribbean. The end of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Anegada, the

Drowned Island. Through the guardian reef. Wreckers. Flotsam and

jetsam huts. Pirate forts and pirate cannon. The Portuguese

derelict. Treasure-trove.

VII Lonely Isles 114

Across the Anegada Passage to St. Martin. Anguilla, the Eel. The

island under two flags. St. Martin a charming island. Salt pans and

industries. Onward to St. Barts. A poverty-stricken spot. Once

Sweden’s colony. The gathering-place of the buccaneers. On the

beach. A privateers’ lair. Gustavia’s heyday. Montbars the

Exterminator. Statia. Where the Stars and Stripes were first

saluted. Orangetown and its treasure. The world’s greatest auction

sale. Statia’s knell. Saba the marvelous. The town in the crater.

Saba and its people. Strange industries.

VIII St. Kitts and the Gorgeous Isle 136

St. Kitts the beautiful. Basseterre. The island’s golden past. The

first settled of the British isles. French and English. Early days.

Brimstone Hill and its massive fort. An echo of the past. The

Travels of Captain Smith. Caribs and quarrels. The “overgrowne

stormes.” Convict slaves. The Gorgeous Isle. Nevis and its past.

Where Nelson married and Hamilton was born. The submerged city. A

miraculous escape. A moral pirate. Sharp the great adventurer.

IX The “Dangerous Voyage” and the Effect of a Nagging Tongue 152

Bartholomew Sharp and his great adventure. Across Darien. The

attack on the Spanish fleet. The Blessed Trinity and its marvelous

cruise. Down the west coast. Around the Horn. The log of the

Trinity. Mutiny. Religious buccaneers. Homeward through

storm-lashed seas. The end of the “dangerous voyage.” The “sea

artist” goes home. Stede Bonnet the gentleman pirate. The less of

two evils. The effect of a nagging tongue. In evil company. The

fate of the major. Over Saba Bank. Sam’s sixth sense. Good hauls.

Land ho!

X The Isle of the Holy Cross 171

St. Croix or Santa Cruz. An Emerald Isle. Where sugar was king.

Christiansted. Ashore. Attractions of the island. A target for

hurricanes. How Hamilton attracted attention. Cannibals. A

turbulent past. Dreams of a kingdom. Knights of Malta. The home

port of the Vigilant. Over the sea to Porto Rico. Porto Rico’s

beauties and attractions. A tamed island. Drake’s repulse. The man

with the queen’s glove in his hat. How the Earl of Cumberland took

San Juan. An enemy he could not conquer. Ogeron’s attempts. The

pirate prisoners. Ogeron’s escape. The rescuers. In the chain-gang.

Birds of a feather. Mona the forbidding. Hispaniola the mighty. A

miniature continent. The most historic spot in America. A land

drenched in blood.

XI The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers 195

Samana Bay and its environs. Where the first blood was spilled. The

Bay of the Arrows. Trade Wind Cay. The pirates’ stronghold. A

miniature Gibraltar. Legends and superstitions. Ruins on the cay.

Treasure. Joseph’s find. Those who frequented the isle. Round and

about Samana Bay. Samana and its people. Sanchez. A wild coast.

Caverns. The amber beach.

XII The Birthplace of the Buccaneers 210

The rugged island. The Dons in Santo Domingo. First gold in the New

World. La Vega la Antigua. Old Weapons. The Cibao. Along the coast

to Puerto Plata. The port. The Silver Shoals and Phipps’s treasure.

The first European settlement in America. Isabella. Monte Cristi

and El Morro. Tortuga the birthplace of the buccaneers. Cayona. The

origin of the buccaneers. Strategies. Pirate governors. The

buccaneers’ fort. The fate of the West India Company.

XIII The Brethren of the Main 226

The buccaneer island. Early forays. Humane practices. How the

pirates got their vessels. Daring assaults. The buccaneers’ ships.

A motley lot. Honor among thieves. The inventors of accident

insurance. Employees’ indemnities. Division of spoils. Oaths and

agreements. Rules. Penalties. Recompense. Temptations. A few of the

buccaneers. Rock Brasiliano the German. A degenerate brute. Bravery

of Brasiliano. Escape from Campeche. John Davis the Jamaican

pirate. A “kind and considerate man.” Lolonais the most cruel of

the buccaneers. An ex-slave. A protégé of the governor. A notable

feat. A monster in human form. Cannibalistic tendencies. Lolonais

shipwrecked. The awful fate of Lolonais. Quarrels among the

freebooters. The British buccaneers help take Jamaica. The pirates’

new lair.

XIV The Granddaddy of the Dollar 243

Through the Windward Passage. Cuba. Navassa the barren. The island

that sent the S. O. S. The buccaneers in Cuba. Morgan at Puerto

Principe. The Isle of Pines and its crocodiles. Gonaives. Over

historic seas. Pieces of eight. Origin of the dollar sign.

Doubloons and onzas. The forerunner of the metric system. Cross

money. Mixed coins. Canny Sam. A prospective wedding. Sail ho!

XV Where a Pirate Ruled 257

Lovely Jamaica. The long-suffering island. The Port Royal of

to-day. Fort Charles and its associations. Nelson’s quarter-deck.

Nelson at Port Royal. The fleet that never came. Scenes in Port

Royal. The Port Royal of the past. The metropolis of the

buccaneers. The richest and wickedest city in the world. Pirates’

pastimes. Vice and debauchery. The pirates’ church. Harry Morgan’s

way. The fate of Port Royal. The destruction of the town.

Survivors. Founding of Kingston. Fire, hurricane, and earthquake.

Columbus and his shipwreck. Cimmaroons and slave uprisings. The

grip of the trust.

XVI Jamaica and Its Pirate Governor 274

Kingston and its surroundings. The destruction of Kingston. In the

country. Motor roads. Newcastle. Cataracts. The three-fingered

bandit. The Natural Bridge. Spanish Town. Origin of names. The

sleepy town. Round and about Spanish Town. The cathedral. Epitaphs.

Penn and Venables. The angler soldier. Benbow and his bravery.

Benbow’s tomb. The battle with Du Casse. Death of Benbow. Sir Henry

Morgan. The pirate knight. His short career. Origin and life. How

Morgan won fame and fortune. Morgan’s first great deed. Sack of

Puerto Principe. Morgan’s quixotic nature. Little loot. The taking

of Porto Bello. Immense treasure. Attack on Panama. Morgan

arrested. The pirate honored. The buccaneer governor. Morgan

disgraced. The end of Morgan.

XVII The Bridge of the World 294

Farewell to the Vigilant. Westward by steamer. Old Providence. The

Spanish Main. Colon. A petty squabble. Colon and Cristobal. Porto

Bello. The Gold Road and its past. Grim tales. San Jerome. The fall

of Porto Bello. Morgan’s attack on Porto Bello. The valiant

governor. Morgan’s brutalities. Tortures. Ransoms. The viceroy’s

message. Morgan’s pleasantries. The ruins of Porto Bello. The

forgotten Gold Road.

XVIII The Castle of Gold 313

The riches of Panama. The greatest gold-producing country. Output

of mines. The treasure-house of Spain. Decadence of Panama. Indian

uprisings. Slaves. Emancipation. Lost mines. Revolutions. The

Panamanian people. A degenerate race. People of the interior.

Inhabitants of cities. Business and industry. Exceptions to the

rule. What the Americans have done. Lack of gratitude. Animosity. A

wonderful land. Darien the unknown. Indians. The bravos. The

pirates’ treatment of the Indians. Sharp’s trip across Darien. The

sack of El Real de Santa Maria. El Real to-day. A deserted

wonderland.

XIX Panama New and Old 332

How Ringrose described Panama. Changes of to-day. In the city. A

hustling modern town. Round the town. The old fort. Walls. Chiriqui

and Las Bovedas. Where the creek once flowed. The old city wall.

Churches. Odd architecture. Ruins. The Golden Altar of San José.

Old Panama. The bridge crossed by Morgan. Ruins. St. Anastasio’s

tower. Old fort and walls. Reconstruction of the ruins. The facts

about old Panama. Burning of the city. Relics. Old Panama as it

was. Wanton destruction. Morgan’s blackest deed.

XX How Morgan Kept His Promise 349

Morgan’s rise to fame. The gathering of the great fleet. The taking

of Old Providence. Treachery. The attack on San Lorenzo. A furious

battle. The accident that won the day. Bravery of Spanish troops.

Awful slaughter. Morgan’s arrival. Morgan garrisons the fort. Loss

of ships. Up the Chagres. Overland. Hardship and sufferings. In

sight of Panama. The battle before the city. The buccaneers’

victory. Deviltry let loose. Tortures and murder. Burning of the

city. The return. Morgan’s gallantry. Sir Henry’s treachery. The

pirate Judas. The dishonored chieftain. Monuments to the past.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Dangerous Voyage Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Cruise in the Wake of the Buccaneers 3

Blackbeard 48

The Vigilant 49

St. John—The careenage, Rendezvous Bay 80

Statia—Along the waterfront 80

St. John—A vista on the Peter Duerloo estate 81

Anegada—The guardian reef 112

Anegada—The forbidding coast 112

St. Martin—Salt ponds 113

St. Martin—A street in Gustavia 113

Saba—Saba Island from the sea 128

Saba—A Saban sedan-chair 128

Saba—“Going aboard” 129

Saba—The town of Bottom from Saba Peak 129

St. Kitts—Basseterre and Monkey Hill 144

St. Kitts—The Circus, Basseterre 144

Map of the South Sea and Coast of America, 1680 and 1681 145

Santa Cruz—Plantation 192

Porto Rico—City wall and house of Ponce de Leon 192

Porto Rico—The Morro, San Juan 193

Porto Rico—San Cristobal, where Ogeron’s men labored 193

Trade Wind Cay—The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers 208

Porto Rico—A “piragua,” the craft in which the buccaneers

first captured Spanish ships 209

St. Barts—Mending nets where the buccaneers divided loot 216

Carib canoes—It was in such craft that the first buccaneers

voyaged from St. Kitts to Hispaniola 216

Tortuga—The birthplace of the buccaneers 217

Francis Lolonois (commonly called Lolonais) 228

The cruelty of Lolonois 229

Rock Brasiliano 236

Bartolomew Portugues 237

The towne of Puerto del Principe taken and sackt 256

Spanish coins used in buccaneer days 257

Sr. Hen. Morgan 272

Jamaica—A road in the hills 273

Panama—Ruins of the fort at Porto Bello 304

Panama—The jungle, Darien, through which Sharp and his men

tramped 305

Panama—San Lorenzo fortress as it is to-day 312

Panama—The new city of Panama 313

Panama—A street in modern Panama City 313

Panama—Darien Indians wearing wooden crowns exactly as

described by Dampier and Ringrose in their accounts of

the buccaneers’ trip across the isthmus 320

Panama—The Tuira River down which Sharp and his men

traveled 321

Panama—Darien (Kuna) Indians, the Indians who guided Sharp

and his men 321

Panama—The ruins of the cathedral, and bit of wall,

Old Panama 336

Panama—All that is left of the ancient fort, Old Panama 336

Panama—Ruins left from Morgan’s raid, Old Panama 337

Panama—Ruins of the governor’s house, Old Panama 337

IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS

CHAPTER I

AMONG THE CARIBBEES

I had started forth on a novel journey, a trip I had long wanted to

take—a cruise in the wake of the buccaneers. Many a time I had

traversed the Caribbean, steaming from port to port of those island

gems, the Lesser Antilles, that are strung, like emeralds and

sapphires, in a great curving chain stretching from our own St. Thomas,

five days south of New York, to Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco.

Many a time, too, I had skirted the coasts, climbed the mountains, and

explored the bush of Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica. And

whenever I had stood upon a liner’s deck and watched the huge-sailed

island sloops and schooners courtesying to the sparkling waves and,

with lee rails awash, surging through the blue sea toward some distant

isle, I had envied those aboard. I had vowed that sooner or later I too

would stand upon the heaving deck of a nimble sailing-craft and cruise

hither and thither among the islands, going and coming as humor willed,

seeing the out-of-the-way places, the little-known islets, the hidden,

quiet bays and coves which no churning screws had disturbed and no

smoke-belching funnels had besmirched.

No locality is more filled with romance, more remindful of adventurous

deeds of the past, more closely associated with the early history of

our country than the Caribbean. Here is the islet first sighted by

Columbus after his long and thrilling voyage into the west. Here dwelt

the conquistadors, the explorers, the voyagers who with fire and blood

blazed their trails across the continents of North and South America.

Here one may still see the crumbling houses in which such noted old

dons as Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Pizarro, Cortez, and others dwelt when

Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) was the center of wealth and fashion in New

Spain. Here was established the first university of the New World

wherein Las Casas taught his pupils a century and more before the

Mayflower sailed into Plymouth harbor. Here the great nations of Europe

contended for control of the new-found lands, and here cruised the

buccaneers, ever seeking their prizes. But to sail these waters and

visit these isles in a modern steamship robs them of their greatest

charm. Who can visualize gilded, purple-sailed galleons swinging to

anchor when buff steel masts, huge funnels, and wireless aërials fill

the foreground? Who can picture swashbuckling, roistering pirates when

the streets they once trod swarm with jitneys? Who can imagine

mail-clad men about to embark on some great adventure when the jetty

bears a creaking, wheezing crane, and sweating negro stevedores bustle

and crowd and swear? No, to find the romance of these islands, to

visualize their past and appreciate their present, one must forego

luxuries and leave the beaten path, and, like the voyagers of old, seek

new scenes in a white-sailed craft whose motive power is the humming

trade wind and whose crew is made up of natives who, in appearance at

least, might well have stepped out of the past.

And at last Fate—in the guise of good-natured and sympathetic friends

in the islands—had made possible my dream and I was cruising one-time

pirate waters in a pirate ship. Yes, a real pirate ship, the Vigilant,

whose solid teak keel was laid well over a century ago; the oldest boat

plying the Caribbean, but still as stanch, seaworthy, and fast as when,

manned by sea-rovers, she had swept under her cloud of canvas upon some

lumbering merchantman or had showed her fleet heels to British

corvettes, as, laden with a cargo of “black ivory,” she had crept forth

from the fetid mouth of some African river, bound with her human

freight for the slave marts of the Antilles. Privateer, pirate, slaver,

and man-o’-war she had been in turn through the long years she had

sailed the seas. Within her hold were still visible the ring-bolts to

which the groaning blacks had been chained. In her timbers were still

the wounds of round shot and bullets, and despite her peaceful

present-day employment as a packet between the islands, she was yet the

typical pirate craft—the “long, low, black schooner with raking masts”

so dear to writers of lurid fiction. [3] And we were bound to that

erstwhile haunt of the sea-rovers, the Virgin Islands.

When Columbus, cruising westward on his second voyage, sighted these

green-clad islets rising above the blue Caribbean, he despaired of

finding saint’s names for all of them, and so called them collectively

“The Virgins,” in honor of the eleven thousand companions of St.

Ursula. The name was not inappropriate, for while there were not eleven

thousand of the isles, they were far too numerous to be counted. The

history of these bits of wave-washed coral and volcanic rock, since

their discovery by the great navigator, has been anything but happy and

peaceful. The Spaniards, finding neither gold nor precious stones upon

them, contented themselves with kidnapping the primitive inhabitants

and then, having depopulated the islands, left them severely alone.

Later, after a period of varying fortunes and misfortunes, they were

parceled off among the European powers, changed hands over and over

again, were sold, bartered, and fought for, and at last, with the

exception of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and one or two others, were dubbed

worthless and were virtually forgotten by the nations which had battled

so long and bloodily to retain them.

Here in close proximity, often but two or three miles apart, were

islands belonging to half a dozen powers,—British, French, Danish,

Swedish, Dutch,—with one owned jointly by Holland and France, while

close at hand, conveniently and temptingly near, in fact, were rich

Spanish possessions. And here, to the eleven thousand Virgins, came the

pirates and the buccaneers. So it was fitting that my cruise in the

ancient but rejuvenated Vigilant should begin with the Virgin Isles.

Presently, above the impossibly blue sea loomed a bit of land, a tiny,

gray-green, barren cay, rimmed with ragged, weather-beaten rocks in

whose coves and hollows coral beaches gleamed, white as the beating

surf, beyond the turquoise water. Leaning upon the schooner’s rail, I

gazed idly and curiously at the little isle, the one break upon the

shimmering sea, a lonely spot whose only signs of life were the

circling sea-birds hovering over it in clouds.

I turned to the fellow at the wheel—a giant of a man, black as ebony

and muscled like a Hercules, naked to the waist, his dungaree trousers

rolled to his knees and supported by a wisp of scarlet sash, his huge

flat feet wide-spread, and a flapping jipijapa hat upon his huge head.

His lusterless eyes, bloodshot from constant diving (for he was a

sponger by profession), and the huge hoops in his ears, gave him a

fierce, wild look, and, glancing at him, one might well have imagined

him a member of a pirate crew, a corsair steering toward some doomed

prize.

“Sam,” I asked, “what’s that island over there to port?”

The big negro slowly turned his head and gazed at the speck of rock and

sand.

“Tha’ ’s Dead Man’s Chest, Chief,” he replied in the soft drawl of the

Bahaman.

Dead Man’s Chest! Instantly, at his words, the song made famous by

Stevenson flashed through my mind: “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s

Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Dead Man’s Chest! The little cay at once took on a new interest. Now I

could almost picture them yonder,—those shipwrecked men, fifteen of

them,—gaunt, fierce-visaged, unshorn; sprawled on the sand in the

scanty shade of the twisted sea-grape trees above the surf. Marooned,

cast away, but reckless daredevils to the last; gambling in the face of

death, tossing a gleaming golden doubloon in their final game of

chance—the stake, their lives against that one bottle of rum! And then

drink and the devil would have done for them as for the rest, and only

their whitening bones over which the sea-birds fought and screamed

would remain to tell their grim tale.

Dead Man’s Chest! What more fitting than that this bit of ocean-girt

land should have been the first of the isles made famous by the

buccaneers to greet my eyes, and what more appropriate than that I

should have sighted it from the deck of a real pirate craft! Fortunate

indeed had I been when her owners delivered the Vigilant into my hands

for my cruise, and I pondered, as we sped past wave-beaten Dead Man’s

Chest, on the story the Vigilant might tell could she but speak. Then

my thoughts were brought back to the present as Sam spoke:

“The’ says as how the’ ’s plenty o’ tr’asure yonder, on Dead Man’s

Chest,” he remarked, “but Ah can’ say as how true ’tis, Chief. Plenty

folks has s’arched for it, but Ah can’ say as the’ ’s foun’ it. I

’spec’ the’ ’s tr’asure a plenty on th’ cays here ’bout. The’ says as

how th’ pirates was num’rous roun’ here.”

“Yes, it was a great place for pirates,” I replied. “You know these

islands well, Sam. Have you ever run across any old guns or forts or

wrecks on any of them? By the way, what’s your last name?”

Sam grinned.

“Ah got a right funny name, Chief,” he responded. “Ah don’ ’spec’ you

ever hear it. It’s Lithgow, Chief.”

Lithgow! What a name to conjure with, in the old buccaneer days! Red

Lithgow, the bold, unprincipled pirate chieftain who hailed from

Louisiana and met death at the end of a rope from his own yard-arm!

Perchance—nay, in all probability—some of the old rascal’s blood still

flowed in Sam’s veins; for all through the islands one finds lineal

descendants (though they may be brown, black, or yellow) of the

buccaneers, whose progeny was legion.

But Sam was again speaking, replying to my first question and telling

me that hidden among the brush and weeds on St. John, St. Martin, and

others of the Virgins, were numerous old walls, ruins, and cannon

which, rumor had it, were relics of the pirates who once made the

islands their stronghold.

My itinerary included all of these in turn, and so the Vigilant’s

course remained unaltered and with the wind humming through the taut

rigging and filling the great straining sails, we rushed on toward St.

Thomas, looming like a cloud upon the horizon far ahead.

And now, as the schooner races onward toward the quaint port of

Charlotte Amalie, a word about the crew that manned the Vigilant; for

Sam was not by any means the only or the most important personage

besides myself. A mixed lot they were, but most valuable factors in my

cruise and an entertaining lot as well. Originally they were all Virgin

Islanders, save Sam, the Bahaman pilot and “captain,” and Joseph, the

long-legged, solemn-faced cook, who, notwithstanding his ebony skin and

kinky head, dubbed all of his race “stupid niggers,” who found

everything not to his liking “pure corruption,” and who proudly boasted

of being a Turks Island boy.

With the Chesterfieldian manners of a duke, painstakingly perfect

English, and the dignity of a Spanish grandee, Joseph looked down upon

the “stupid niggers” of the crew as from an impregnable height, and

fraternized with Sam only, the others being merely tolerated. A right

good cook and a faithful boy was Joe, and a never-ending source of

amusement because of his assumption of a sort of guardianship over me.

But ere the cruise was over he and Sam and one other were the only

remaining members of my original crew. Never did the Vigilant’s

mud-hook seek bottom in the limpid waters of some lovely isle that one

or more of my sailors did not desert. Not that they had aught of which

to complain, or found their duties on the ship irksome, but good

American dollars in their pockets, a rich green shore, and

chocolate-colored sirens were temptations beyond the black man’s power

to resist. Yet never were we short-handed. For every man who left, a

score clamored to be taken on, and had the Vigilant been on a pirating

adventure I could have filled her to the hatches with as varicolored

and vari-charactered a crew as ever swarmed over the bulwarks of a

stricken prize.

To the West Indians, every American is a millionaire and a

philanthropist, and in their eyes, apparently, he is morally bound to

carry each, all, and sundry to that dreamed-of-land the States, the

Mecca of every inhabitant of the islands. Wherever the Vigilant folded

her white wings and came to rest, we were besieged by a small army of

black, brown, yellow, and every intermediate shade, all begging to be

allowed to accompany us. For the West Indian is a restless soul, never

content unless on the move and caring not a jot where day or night may

find him, albeit he is intensely patriotic, and thinks his island

preferable to all others and his people the salt of the earth.

Thus it came about that, what with deserters and new-comers, the crew

was a sort of kaleidoscopic aggregation, shifting from yellow to brown,

from black to tan, from soft-voiced, slurring-tongued “patois men” to

h-dropping ’Badians and brogue-speaking Montserratans. And a happy

family they were at that—good-naturedly chaffing one another, having

long-winded arguments over the respective merits of their various

island homes, using preposterous, meaningless words of their own

invention. And all and each making life miserable for the hapless

natives of that “right little, tight little island” designated on the

maps as Barbados, affectionately dubbed “Little England” by its sons

and daughters, and also known as “Bimshire Land,” [4] whose natives

seem for some strange reason ever to be the butt and the jest of the

other islanders, and who are the pariahs of their race, if we are to

believe their fellow negroes of the Caribbees.

Never did my men tire of taunting some poor ’Badian with the doggerel

verse

A ha’penny loaf an’ a bit o’ salt fish,

Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a dish.

A bottle o’ soda divided ’twix’ t’ree,

Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a spree.

If the ’Badians happened to be in the minority, they bore it as best

they might or retorted that “You men awnt civ’lized. You don’ know

better’n to wear alpargats to a charch of a Sunday,” a response which

usually brought on a loud cracking of tough skulls, as, like enraged

goats, the men butted one another’s wool-covered craniums—a contest in

which the ’Badian always emerged victorious. For to accuse an islander

of wearing alpargatas (the sandal-like footgear brought from Venezuela)

to church, is an insult not lightly to be suffered. Indeed, if ever

there was a being who outshone Solomon in all his glory, it is the West

Indian negro on the Sabbath; and his highest ambition is, in order to

draw greater attention to his gorgeous raiment, to possess a pair of

brilliant, pumpkin-colored shoes which, to quote his own words, “goes

queek, queek when Ah walks in de charch.”

As might be expected, in the constant change and interchange of

multicolored flotsam and jetsam, we picked up many a strange and

interesting, not to say downright weird, character.

There, for example, was Trouble. He appeared one glorious golden morn

as we lay at anchor off St. John, like Aphrodite rising from the sea,

his scanty garments dripping with brine; for, being both boatless and

penniless, he had used nature’s gifts to win his way from shore to ship

like the amphibious creature he proved to be. But, aside from the

unexpected manner of his appearance, nothing could have resembled the

goddess of the sea less. In fact, he was unquestionably the ugliest and

most repulsive representative of the genus Homo and the species Sapiens

that I have ever gazed upon—bony and big, with gorilla-like arms and a

face so broad and forehead so low that his head appeared to have been

forced out of shape by hydraulic pressure, while his natural absence of

human-like features had been enhanced by some accident which had

deprived him of even the semblance of a nose. There, above his immense

mouth, were two huge round holes which, when he grinned,—as he

constantly did,—stretched into slits that seemed ever on the point of

meeting his ears and literally severing his black face into upper and

lower hemispheres.

Like a prize bull-pup, he was so extravagantly ugly that he actually

was fascinating, and not until he spoke could I take my eyes from him.

And his first words were almost as astounding and unexpected as his

appearance:

“Ah’m beggin’ o’ yo’ pawdon, Boss, for mah audacity an’ assumption o’

de manner o’ mah absence o’ dignification for precip’tately

discommodin’ yo’, but Ah’d like for to propoun’ de interrogation ef yo’

can absorbinate mah sarvices for a member o’ de crew, sir, for to

circumnavigate de islan’s, sir.”

Was I dreaming, or had the climate affected my brain? I literally

gasped.

But the next instant I had recovered myself, for I knew that this

noseless apparition with his wide mouth filled with long words could

have originated in but one locality in all the islands, Antigua, whose

dusky inhabitants seem to pride themselves upon the amplitude of the

words they can command, regardless of their meaning or aptness.

“What’s your name, and what can you do?” I asked, more as a formality

than anything else, for I never dreamed of taking this creature on.

The noseless negro scratched his head and wiggled his bare toes.

“Ah was christened wi’ de cognomen o’ Henry Francis William Nelson

Wellington Shand, sir,” he replied; and then, as an afterthought, “but

Ah’m most usually designated by de name o’ Trouble, sir.”

“Trouble!” I exclaimed.

“Yaas, sir,” responded the grinning negro, instantly. “Thank yo’ sir,

for mekkin’ acceptance o’ mah sarvices, sir. Ah’ll endeavor for to

conduc’ mahself wif circumspection an’ implicitness. Ah’s a sailor,

sir, an’ Ah’m not expandulatin’ buncomb when Ah takes upon mahself de

assumptiveness o’ de assertion, sir.”

I was speechless,—so astounded at the man’s “assumptiveness” that he

had been hired that I could not find words to inform him of his

mistake,—and by the time I recovered from my astonishment he had

disappeared in the forecastle.

Sam stood by, chuckling to himself.

“Ah ’spec’s he may be a good sailor, Chief,” he vouchsafed. “An’ we’re

in need o’ two han’s, Chief.”

“All right, Sam,” I replied. “I suppose he doesn’t need a nose to run

aloft or tail onto a rope.”

And so Trouble came unto us, but if ever a man belied his name it was

“Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir,” for Trouble was a

very treasure of a hand. He was as much at home in the water as on land

or deck, and when, later, our anchor fouled one day, in fifteen

fathoms, Trouble made nothing of diving down and releasing the fluke

from its lodgment under a mass of coral and rock, while the height of

his enjoyment was to challenge Sam to dive overboard and kill a big

shark in a single-handed duel beneath the sea. And Sam, though a diver

by profession, who had killed many a man-eater with a blow of his long,

keen-bladed knife, freely admitted Trouble’s amphibious superiority.

Aloft he was a very monkey; he was ever scouring decks or polishing

brass; he was as good-natured as he was ugly, and even dignified Joseph

unbent and passed many a half-hour chinning with this weird waif of the

sea. As for the other members of the crew, after one or two tests and

trials they abandoned all attempts to out-talk or out-argue him, for

his ready flow of multisyllabled words left them floundering in a

vocabulary totally inadequate to cope with Trouble’s “expandulations”

and “supercil’ous methodictions.” On one occasion I overheard a bit of

argument between our Antiguan find and a recent addition to the

crew—for the older members invariably egged on new recruits to argue

with Trouble.

I do not know what the argument had been about nor what the new man had

said, but as he was a French mulatto from Dominica,—or, as the other

islanders have it, a “patois man,”—I presume he had been referring in

no complimentary terms to Henry Francis et cetera’s native heath.

“Yo’ worthless specimen o’ misguided humanity yo’!” exclaimed Trouble.

“Yo’ insignificant an’ fragment’ry yaller element! For wherefo’ yo’

have de audacity to let yo’ imagination direc’ yo’ to dat assumption?

Who yo’ t’ink yo’ addressin’ in dat highfalutin’, presumptious,

dictatious manner? Ah desire yo’ to distinc’ly an’ def’nitely

absorbinate de eminen’ly interestin’ an’ important info’mation Ah’s

propoundin’, an’ if yo’ declinates to precip’tately reconsider de

sentiments yo’ jus’ expressed an’ at once an’ immediately an’ hereby

and in witness whereof retrac’ yo’ asservations once, forever, an’

henceforth, der’ ’s boun’ for to occur a casulty an’ a deceased patois

nigger, an’ de gentleman is goin’ for to be compulsified for to

discommode hisself to acquire another incumbent for to fill de work

what yo’ lack o’ intellec’ don’ fit yo’ for.”

Needless to say, in the face of this dire threat—which to the

fear-stricken recipient savored of an incantation by a witch doctor or

“obeah man”—the French islander promptly and “precip’tately”

reconsidered and retracted whatever it was that had inadvertently

brought on Trouble’s outburst.

To the last day of the voyage Trouble was with us in name if not in

spirit, and never did I regret that he had hired himself, so to speak.

Aside from him and Sam and Joe, the only fixture was a red-haired,

freckle-faced Montserratan boy whom I could not resist employing on

account of his rich brogue and who served as cabin-boy, laundryman, and

clown, and with the ready wit of his wild Irish ancestors kept us all

in good humor throughout the cruise.