IV

In a gang of men with a grievance grumbling usually becomes vocal

in a sort of natural spokesman. The kind of people who manned the

_Adventure_ were probably hard to manage, especially after all hands

had committed themselves as lawbreakers. They were taking so many risks

that unless profit came in to justify them their complaints would

sharply flare up.

They were in front of danger from disease, a demoralizing illustration

of which they had but recently seen in their own ship; the robbery of

ships was also dangerous, while most vivid of all, though farthest

removed geographically, was the picture of outraged authority waiting

them at home with the grim paraphernalia of Execution Dock.

Such things make men peevish and if all be endured or braved it must

not be for a mere trifle. And, beyond the game with the Portuguese,

which all would admit was the one bright spot of the month, nothing by

way of a share had been passed around, for the quite apparent reason

that nothing had been taken to share.

Why Kidd let the _Loyal Captain_ get away is known only to himself.

His men did not understand it. They knew he was not afraid; they

never doubted in that sort of thing. But there she went,--a good-sized

merchant ship, the very thing they were all out here risking their

necks for.

Gunner Moore gave tongue to their troubles; Gunner Moore was not

afraid, not he; out with it and speak up like men. Why he himself

could have shown Captain Kidd a way to take the _Loyal Captain_ and

that without any risk. There is always a Gunner Moore. Always in all

undertakings, lawful as well as unlawful, there is an ever-ready

subordinate with better plans and methods than his superior’s. Such men

always talk and almost always fatally. Gunner Moore did.

You notice the sting in the gunner’s phrase--“without risk.” That was

the heel by which to prick the demon up in the captain. The imputation

of fear so plainly false,--no wonder as Gunner Moore was grinding a

chisel on the deck, the hoarse voice of his commander growled in his

ear--

“Which way could you have put me in a way to take this ship (the _Loyal

Captain_) and been clear?”

It was a hot minute for Gunner Moore. Now Mr. Moore, you who are so

smart, how would you have taken the _Loyal Captain_ without risk? One

may feel sorry for the gunner; he has angered the hardest man, in

some respects, on or off the coast of Malabar, in whose shelter the

_Adventure_ was then riding.

The gunner did what almost everybody would have done in the same

stress; he tried to put out to sea in a lie.

“Sir,” said he, “I never spoke such a word, nor ever thought such a

thing.”

Gunner Moore was not naturally adapted for the piratical life. With

Kidd in that mood and menace before him there was no refuge for him in

words. The captain must have surmised that the gunner had been audible

to the crew as well as himself, and his particular game made an example

imperative. It was really all up with the gunner before a word was said.

Everybody on board was looking on. The sail maker sat cross-legged with

his needle poised; men dozing on the blistering decks awoke to stare;

over the yardarms aloft the heads of the sailors working gazed fixedly

below them; it was that intense moment before tragedy.

Captain Kidd pronounced sentence in a voice that everybody could hear:

“You lousy dog!”

Kidd was never short of picture words. He used few abstractions;

everything and everybody he painted in quick, certain colors.

Perhaps, after all, there was a chance for the gunner. If he had meekly

bowed assent and driven along with his chisel-grinding it might have

been well for him. But it is to be taken that Gunner Moore had passed

himself for a man of some character among his fellows. He was a sort

of gang leader, apparently; had he not spoken up, had not his attitude

been, “Who’s afraid of Kidd?” He was, really, but had not imagination

enough to know it. And now he was tumbled low before all men with

these rough words. To swallow them was to creep about the ship forever

humble. He rallied, did the gunner, but instead of rallying with words

he should have resorted to the chisel in his hand or a marlin-spike.

No, he did not understand the piratical trade. He mistook it as a

calling in which one could still talk.

“If I am a lousy dog,” he cried desperately, “you have made me so; you

have brought me to ruin and many more.”

“And many more.” Notice that! It is an appeal to that gaping sailmaker,

those wide-eyed sleepers, those staring men in the rigging. Here am I,

it says, your spokesman, telling the captain now just what we have all

been saying about him and the way we all feel; stick by me; somebody up

there in the yards please drop a block on his head.

Gangs, being untrained and undirected, are necessarily uncertain and do

not engage their opportunity. A brisk demonstration of sympathy might

have saved the gunner; the captain was only one man.

The ship rocked, the wind blew sluggish from Malabar, a cord smacked

thinly against the spars and the moment passed.

“Have I ruined you, ye dog?” replied his formidable opponent. “Take

that!”

Kidd grabbed a heavy wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops, probably the

one holding the water with which the gunner wet his stone, and smote

Moore upon the head.

Sails sank his needle back in the canvas, the sleepers turned over on

their sides, the men aloft looked a moment solemnly at each other, and

the wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops, rolled redly to the scuppers.

There was an opening for a gunner aboard the ship _Adventure_.

Malabar, that beautiful and fertile strip of the Indian coast which

fronts the Arabian Sea for some hundred and fifty miles, was a sort

of way station for Kidd as he worked the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden,

the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. He ran in and out of this region

according to his need of victualing or repairing the now unsatisfactory

_Adventure_.

He was not what one would call exactly welcome there. His coming meant

a disturbance in the local villages and the liberation upon them of

an undisciplined and roguish company. His crew and the natives not

occasionally fell out. Very likely the sailors were the beginners of

the trouble,--so their general make-up of character would suggest.

Gunner Moore’s death was not the only violence of the _Adventure’s_

hours at Malabar.

There was, for instance, the matter of the ship’s cooper. That artisan

got among the natives and never came back to the ship. It was on him

the townsfolk avenged themselves in an undetermined quarrel with the

pirates of which the cooper’s death was an episode. Knowing Kidd as we

do, it is not astonishing that he visited his wrath upon the natives

in vindicating the life even of a ship’s cooper. He swarmed his men

ashore, burned down the dwellings of the people and, catching one of

the inhabitants, ordered him, with crude formality, shot.

It is a wonder that he did not exterminate the town. Mere ruthlessness,

however, would not seem a part of his disposition. In this matter of

the cooper there cannot be much question that the final responsibility

must fall upon the captain, whose failure to keep order among his men

made their acts of provocation possible.

With these two incidents of the gunner and the cooper to lend action to

his sojourn, Kidd lay about Malabar until November, 1697, was advanced.

He then pulled up his anchor and breezed out to the Arabian Sea seeking

what or whom he might devour. The lot fell on a Moorish ship, out from

Surat, under the command of a Dutch skipper.

On sighting her, Kidd went to the flag locker where he had a bundle

of symbolic aliases and picked out the flag of France, and flung it

brightly from his topmast. The Moor was wallowing along without any

insignia of nationality, but before very long, the _Adventure’s_ men

saw her shake out the French flag. Whereupon everybody laughed in deep

chests and kept smoothly to the pursuit.

After some hours of comfortable sailing the _Adventure_ pulled

alongside the Moor, and confronting her with a row of gleaming cannon

bade her stop. No doubt the agitated Dutchman in command supposed

that he had been intercepted by a French ship of war, and so, stowing

certain ship’s papers, doubtless prepared for just such earnest

moments, in his pocket he obeyed Kidd’s hoarse bellow to come aboard.

While his boat was coming over to the _Adventure_, Kidd was arranging a

reception for him of an artful kind.

He called one of the crew, a Frenchman, aft and bade him represent

himself to be the captain of the _Adventure_ in the pending interview

with the Dutchman. Just why would soon be shown.

Over the side came the Dutch skipper with a puffed, perturbed face. The

Frenchman met him and demanded his papers. With something of relief the

skipper must have pulled out the French passes, or clearance papers,

he had taken the precaution to bring on the voyage with him. He was

relieved because he found himself on an undoubted French ship and

happily with French shipping papers; he felt among friends.

No sooner was the French pass spread out than Kidd, standing close

by, toying with the handle of his cutlass, roared out in frightening

English:

“Ah ha, I have catched you, have I. You are a free prize to England.”

This action shows that Kidd was not ready to avow himself a pirate. As

such, there would have been no need for the subterfuge of French colors

and a French captain; he had force enough to accomplish his intent

as it was. The truth of the thing most likely was that Kidd coolly

calculated that he could take ships under color of being Frenchmen,

or some other excuse, and that even the despoiled vessels would not

necessarily know his real status. He seems always to have had an eye to

an early return to his accustomed social position. This, if anything,

distinguishes Kidd from the typical pirate and so far denies the

traditional picture of fiction.

Out of this small Moorish ship the haul was meager. Two horses, some

quilts and odds and ends of cargo. He kept the ship with him until his

next trip to Madagascar; probably, according to his custom, putting the

officers ashore at Malabar, and recruiting his forces with any of the

captives who wished to go along with him.

December soon marked a change in the very ordinary luck which had so

far attended the _Adventure’s_ enterprise. A Moorish ketch in this

month fell to them, and, rather unusually, after a fight in which one

of the pirates was wounded. An inconsequential affair it was at that,

her capture being effected by a handful of men from the ship’s boat.

The captors ran her ashore and emptied out of her thirty tubs of butter

as the principal gain. The ketch was then turned adrift.

All hands no doubt wished each other a happy and prosperous New Year as

1698 came over the horizon of time. But January was to step along quite

a little before even a trifle was scavenged from the sea. This was a

Portuguese, out from Bengal, and laden with butter, wax and East Indian

goods. She was taken in without any trouble, and a prize crew put on

her to keep her in company with the _Adventure_.

And now a disturbing matter arose for the captain. He was pursued

by seven or eight Dutch ships, until he was obliged to call off his

prize crew and abandon the Portuguese ship. It was disturbing, not

because the captain was afraid of the seven or eight Dutch sail, but it

must have indicated to him that his unlawful operations had not been

disguised as well as he had wished. He saw then that word had got about

the Indian ports that he was a pirate. His suspicions were correct;

not only was the truth penetrating to India; it was also on its way to

England, where a great shock was to befall all those concerned with

King William’s trusty and well-beloved mariner. Not the least so

interested was to be that genteel nobleman, Earl Bellamont, Governor

of the Province of New York, whose political enemies, airing the

arrangement with Kidd, began to accuse him openly of having a good big

finger in the piratical pie.

Thus far off all sorts of trouble were brewing for Captain Kidd as he

beat about the spicy coast of India.

V

But a most momentous turn of fortune was impending. And it was high

time. The pirates were thoroughly fed with butter; out of almost every

capture they had taken butter, until it was butter, butter and nothing

but butter. The _Adventure_ promised to become a sort of floating

grocery store, specializing on butter, with coffee a strong second,

while, for those with a fancy for dreams, liberal quantities of opium

could be passed over the counter.

Bellamont and Company had not gone to considerable expense just to

corner the butter market of the East Indies, nor to interfere seriously

with the dairy and grocery businesses of those regions. Had they been

in receipt of monthly reports from their peculiar partner away out

there, they would have been both surprised and disappointed and very

properly grieved.

The butter era was about to end sharply. The _Quedagh Merchant_ did

that.

A comparatively large ship she must have been when Kidd first saw her

lumbering along, loaded down to capacity. As soon as he spotted her,

out from the locker came the French flag again, and as a French ship

he drew quickly alongside. Probably the usual round shot across the

bows brought her up. If so that was the only demonstration of violence

which marked the taking of one of the richest ships that ever a pirate

gloated over.

As soon as the _Merchant_ braced back, Kidd sent a boat from his ship

to her with orders to bring the captain to him. The boat came back with

an old Frenchman grumbling and puzzled in the stern. The skipper of the

_Merchant_ naturally thought a Frenchman should represent them to a

French ship of unknown but threatening attitude. This old man, however,

had not been long in talk with the pirate chief before he confessed

that he was not the master of the _Quedagh Merchant_, but her gunner.

Whereupon Kidd sent the boat off again for the real commander.

One begins to see the value of the ruse of sailing under French

colors. Many of the ships on that particular beat evidently had French

clearance papers. British trade was probably almost entirely through

traffic around the Cape to England; the coastwise business was Moorish,

by which was generally meant Arabian, Dutch, French and Armenian.

Hence to approach the ordinary coaster, the French colors at his mast,

avoided the delay and difficulty of a protracted pursuit, as well as

served to disarm them when overtaken.

Whenever they had French passes, instead of showing force to a

seemingly French ship, the easiest and most natural thing for them to

do was to expose their papers, and so proceed peacefully on their way.

Such a ship as this which Kidd was now taking could no doubt have put

up some measure of resistance had she been forewarned. Still again,

Kidd artfully induced them to show a French pass and then revealed

himself as an Englishman commissioned to take just that sort of craft,

and thus despoil many victims without discovering his real traffic.

The French pass idea struck Kidd as so good that he worked it not only

in the waters of the Indies but in the courts of his outraged Majesty,

King William, as he entered the valley of death’s shadow.

This time the boat came back carrying a swearing Englishman, one

Wright, indubitable skipper of the _Quedagh Merchant_. When he set foot

on the pirate’s deck Kidd brusquely informed him he was a prisoner

being off a French ship, as witness the embassage of the old French

gunner. While Wright, who had formerly been a tavern keeper at Surat,

bleated about the decks, Kidd sent a crew over to take possession of

the _Quedagh Merchant_.

Here they found a couple of Dutchmen, probably the ship’s mates, a

Frenchman--the old gunner--and a crew of Moors. Another group of

considerable importance to the story was that of the charterers of the

ship--certain Armenians under the headship of one Cogi Baba. In a

little while Kidd joined his merry men.

Here occurred a curious little comedy. So soon as Kidd came up the

side, the Armenians rushed toward him and with loud cries and prayers

besought him to return them their ship. They thrust at him the

respectable ransom of twenty thousand rupees. Kidd waved their offer

away, remarking that it was a very small parcel of money. He then

called his men and instructed them to go off on the forecastle and hold

a mimic conference together, wherein they were to pretend to vote upon

the fate of the captured craft. With solemn stupid faces they grouped

off by themselves, the while the plaints of the distracted Armenians

assailed their hairy ears.

Then owlishly they returned to the quarterdeck where, with great

seriousness, they informed their commander that they had voted to

retain the _Quedagh Merchant_. Thereupon Kidd turned to the Armenians

with a shrug of the shoulder as much as to say, what would you; what

can you do with a crowd like that?

Kidd was still playing his strange double game. He was acting the part

of an English officer taking in a suspect enemy ship. The farce of the

crew’s conference was a by-play to divert the Armenians’ clamor from

one to many heads, and perhaps to show the incorruptibility of these

patriotic British seamen.

That done, they appraised their garnerings and shouted with joy when

it was discovered that they had found nearly ten thousand pounds’ worth

of valuables. In our money it is difficult to estimate just what the

amount would be now, but certainly an extraordinary fortune.

Not only that but here was a good seaworthy, commodious ship of very

great value herself. All hands were called from the old _Adventure_;

pitch barrels were staved in and kicked about her decks, and she went

up to the coppery Indian sky in great festoons of smoke.

The _Quedagh Merchant_ swung around, her decks now congested with

the whole crew of the destroyed _Adventure_ and into her compass box

peering the firm hard face of William Kidd, mariner, of London, trusty

and well-beloved.

[Illustration: She went up to the coppery Indian sky in great festoons

of smoke.]