Living at the unregulated rate they were, the meager provisioning of
the ship was soon used up, and so, in search of food and wine rather
than diamonds and gold, they set for the coasts of Spain and Portugal,
hoping to intercept a local trader freighted with the desired goods.
A small English ship, the _Sarah Snow_, of Bristol, was the first
honest craft to vividly discover that a robber was loose on the high
seas. What with surprise and the display of a number of guns which
Gow had brought up from below and thrust impressively through his
ports, the _Sarah Snow_ yielded without a fight, whereupon she was
systematically rifled from cargo to the crew’s few shillings, and,
leaving one volunteer to join the despoilers, she was permitted to
proceed on her voyage.
The _Delight_, of Poole, next fell into their hands, in very similar
circumstances, was plundered and allowed to go.
An Englishman, carrying fish from Newfoundland to Cadiz, was informally
and unexpectedly relieved of a large portion of his cargo without
dockage or stevedoring fees, but unfortunately without any receipt
being given him for the information of his owners. Not only that,
but somebody thoughtfully decided the owners might at least have the
advantage of the insurance, so he kicked a hole in the bottom and the
fish boat took a nose dive into the far green deeps. The captain and
her crew of four men were brought aboard the _Revenge_ as “prisoners.”
They were kept forward under guard, for what eventual disposition
nobody--least of all themselves--had the slightest notion. Lieutenant
Williams beguiled a boresome day by hanging them up by the thumbs, or
seeing which one could longest stand a rope’s end on his bare back.
Williams, doubtless, would have delighted in the plank-walking trick,
but public opinion was not entirely with him. In fact, he began to
sneer at Gow--behind his back--for a chicken-livered pirate, and even
secured a sort of following for his point of view. One of the four
captives, a man named Jack Belvin, avoided the Welsh lieutenant’s
flayings by signing on with the pirates; the others heroically endured
rather than become felons. Well, they must have been pretty good men
to begin with to take a boat requiring only a crew of five all the way
from Newfoundland to Cadiz.
A Scotch ship, carrying pickled herrings to Italy, was the next in
line. The _Revenge_ already had a surplus of fish, but, taking off a
considerable quantity of the cargo, Gow amused the men and practiced
the gunner by bombarding her with his guns and thus amusingly sending
the pickled herring back to their original element. The Scotch crew
joined Williams’ victims forward.
A pirate always overloaded on the products of the locality he haunted.
Kidd, off the Malabar coast procured butter enough to use as a
lubricant; Quelch, down Brazil way, acquired control of the coffee and
sugar trade; Blackbeard and Bonnet, off the Carolinas, specialized in
pineapples and Jamaica rum; Henry Avery, in the Gulf of Guinea, opened
his prize package and found it full of negro slaves, and now here is
John Gow seriously disturbing the market in salt and pickled fish.
Save for the exceptional chance, Kidd, Quelch and Avery would have
degenerated into petty peddlers of stolen groceries; their big hauls
just happened along.
Everybody on board was now living on salmon, cod and pickled herrings,
with never a barrel of bread to go with the fish, and not a spoonful
of wine to wash the thirst-provoking diet down. They hesitated to
attack any new ships for fear another scaly cargo should mock them,
odoriferously from the hold; the thing got beyond a joke and the cook,
no doubt, kept his dirk handily under his apron as he passed out the
inevitable hunk of pickled horror.
Gow had already seen vividly that the matter of something to eat
will upset a dynasty and junk a throne more quickly than any merely
political irritation, so, for the appeasement of his subjects and the
preservation of his dignities--to say nothing of his life--he resolved
to risk no more disappointing ships but to strike for a port and the
run of land stores.
The place chosen for their custom was the little Portuguese settlement
of Porta Santa, in the Madeiras. With something of the feeling that
honester men have on the homeward heave, all hands pulled together
heartily, nor allowed any wallowing merchantmen to divert them until
the white walls and red roofs of their desired haven rose comfortingly
out of the sea. The _Revenge_ foamed smartly into the harbor and
rattled her anchor into the mud.
A solemn council in the great cabin--now in all that queer
topsy-turveydom which betrays apparent but false authority, and where
there was no longer any cramping posture for evening prayers--decided
that here was a splendid opportunity to get rid of some of their fish.
Appropriately, they would bestow a quantity of it on the governor of
Porta Santa, as the embodiment of the State.
Half a dozen ruffians washed their faces, clubbed their briny locks,
rubbed up their shoe buckles, pulled together, with long stitches, the
gaping holes in their stockings and set out in a boat jammed with dried
salmon and pickled herring.
From his airy prison, the Scotch captain gazed pensively upon them.
“Mon,” he groaned to a captive Dane, “I cuid bear to ken the rabbers
sell ma fush--but to gie it awa’; gie it awa’ to these jabberin’
jumping-jacks for never a bawbee! Mon, mon, these mock sailors air on
the road to ruin. And Gow a Scottishman--” John Gow’s departure from
the normal was simply inexplicable.
The burly Dane grunted “Yah”, practically the extent of his linguistic
resources in Danish or any other tongue. He never did know what all
these doings meant, anyway.
His Excellency was deeply touched when the load of preserved marine
fauna was dumped on the gubernatorial verandah.
“It’s not so much the gift,” he reflected, turning over a stark salmon
with the toe of his shoe, “as the spirit of the giver.”
He looked approvingly on the six honest visages before him and marveled
at the depths of their unselfishness.
“Where are you bound?” he asked, in Portuguese.
“Tell him Bristol, Bill,” prompted one of the emissaries to the
slow-footed chum who could parley the lingo sufficiently to interpret
the question to his fellows. So Bristol it was.
With racial courtesy, the governor proposed to return to the ship with
them, to formally thank their captain. A group of local dignitaries was
quickly collected and all went down to the wharf.
“The governor’s coming aboard,” shouted Gow, as the company appeared at
the water side. “Now, men, keep ’em on the quarter-deck and away from
the prisoners, and you yourselves try to look less like jailbirds and
more like sailormen!”
The reception on the quarter-deck left nothing out; even the awning was
drawn across so that for a little while it seemed to some of the men
that the past few weeks were all a dream, good or bad as the individual
viewpoint dictated.
The boat had had orders, after bringing out the governor’s party, to go
back to town and fetch provisions. Now, whether the idea was to pay for
the goods or to just take them with a thank-ye-marm is not a matter of
recorded history; historical it is, however, that the boat came back
empty, which Gow, out of the corner of his eye, noticed, and, excusing
his absence, stepped down the companion ladder in anxious questioning.
Somehow there was always drumming through his head old Paterson’s
ancient chant, “As we eat, so shall we work.”
“They won’t give us the grub,” bellowed the boatswain, balancing
himself in the stern of the bobbing boat.
Gow went back and lodged a courteous complaint with His Excellency.
Excellency called an attendant and battered him about the ears with
swift Portuguese. Attendant went back with the boat.
Back came the boat in a little while, with the boatswain holding
aloft a sadly small meal bag in signals that needed no aid from the
boatswain’s disgusted expression. More complaints to the governor--and
complaints rather acrid; more rapid fire at the attendant; another
departure for shore--the boat’s crew were beginning to grumble at
their oars--another return. Nothing at all with them, this time. The
boatswain wigwagged Gow to do something violent with the governor.
Which Gow proceeded to do. He unbuttoned his coat and revealed himself
attired to play “Arsenal” in a charade, with a belt full of sudden
death in several varieties. As calmly as if he were taking out a
toothpick, he drew a long, convincing pistol and laid it cozily--nose
on--into the deepest crease of the governor’s brocaded waistcoat.
In this manner the _Revenge_ was amply provisioned at Porta Santa.
V
The larder stuffed, the next question before the House was whither
now. “Before the House” is a calculated phrase, for, by approved
piratical procedure, equal franchise prevailed on the _Revenge_; a
majority decided all general propositions; only in the particular ones
of fighting, chasing or being chased was the captain’s power absolute.
With their odd turn for the comic, the jolly sea robbers would often
describe their conferences as sessions of the “House of Lords” or the
“House of Commons”, just as they enjoyed, when carousing ashore, under
the mangrove trees of the West Indies, holding mock courts for the
mimic trial of one of the number for piracy, when the “Judge” would
throw a tarpaulin around his shoulders for the judicial robes, and
a turban on his head for the ponderous judicial wig, and the whole
affair would be carried off in a quite striking parody of that judicial
process which many of their fellows had already suffered under, and for
most of whom the actual fact was but a question of time. Such jollities
revealed an intimate knowledge of forms and manner and curiously
reflected the contemporaneous severity of prosecutors and judges.
The lawless business still had its laws; for instance, sea courtesy
between passing pirates required salutes with loaded guns, as against
the usual blanks, and in their burial rites the maritime rovers often
followed their own peculiar but very particular ritual.
After the usual tumultuous debate, Cape St. Vincent, Spain, was the
place chosen for their happy efforts, there to intercept the lawful
merchants in those fairly crowded sea lanes. The selection looked
justified by an early capture. But, alas for the disappointments of
life, when the cargo was eagerly examined, it was found to be merely
a mass of negro slaves being rushed from the Gulf of Guinea to the
American plantations, by way of Lisbon, into which the slaver had had
to detour through the pressure of adverse circumstances. Little did
John Gow realize, as he looked down into that fetid hold, that he was
gazing upon one of the major elements of future history and the strife
of armed hosts. Probably would not have cared, at that.
Slaves were less desirable even than salt fish; Gow wanted no more
mouths to feed. However, he could replenish his sail lockers from the
brig’s canvas, as well as obtain a bagful of watches, small coins and
personal knickknacks from the crew. Then, too, the gang decided that
here was a good chance to be rid of a number of their unprofitable
prisoners by a means not too violent. The disposition of prisoners of a
pirate was a constant problem throughout the history of the business,
because, contrary to the common idea, very few pirates could bring
themselves to an utter ferocity in the destruction of their victims
after the guns had ceased throbbing and the smoke had curled away from
the desecrated waters. The worst of them, Teach, England, Davis, Low,
Lewis, all had their hours of compunction, and marooning was not hit
upon as a method of wicked torture, but as a compromise to get men out
of the way whom they could not feed and who would not work with them,
yet without making the ship a shambles. This appears to be true, at
least, of English-speaking pirates; when you come to the swart Ladrone
villains, many of the Spanish, and the Chinese, there you will find the
uttermost of barbarity.
So a group of the forlorn mariners was transferred from the _Revenge_
to the slaver--not at the slaver’s request--and that vessel was then
allowed to proceed on its humane occasions.
Lieutenant Williams could not get the point of all this solicitude for
mere prisoners. He rather favored the Chinese way.
A French ship next splashed around the Cape and into captivity. A
neat find, being freighted with goodly store of oil and wine, even to
the solid value of five hundred golden English pounds. Captured, too,
like the rest of them, without a blow. As a matter of fact, a fight
was exceptional rather than usual, not because merchant masters were
cowardly, but because the pirate, often by a trick of false colors,
gained a confiding approach until within close range, when he would
suddenly bristle his line of muzzle-framing open ports with the
snarling demand of money or life. As the old West would have put it,
the pirate “got the drop” on his prey.
The dour old Scotch captain, still lamenting the waste of his “fush”,
now met the wheel of fortune on one of its most whimsical turns. The
_Revenge_ was a little bored with the Scotch friend, and a quarter-deck
parliament hit on the artful idea of simply making an entire change of
prisoners by bodily shifting the present ones over to the Frenchman
and bringing all the Frenchmen to the _Revenge_. The pirates felt so
relieved with the newness of it all that they even gave the puzzled
Scot additional sails and some small articles of ship furniture,--only
Mr. Williams reserved the right to kick his departing victims down the
gangway. A really nasty person, was Williams.
It would be mightily entertaining, no doubt, to know what the feelings
of the Scotch skipper were as he found himself thus on another man’s
quarter-deck, in another man’s cabin, going through another man’s
shipping papers and deeply mystified as to how he was going to explain
the extraordinary situation to another man’s owners.
We wonder, too, what the French owners said when their ship finally
reported in the person of a master with an outlandish tongue and a
truly incredible yarn.
The Scot bobbed away to the horizon, cogitating his own particular
problems, when another ship--but of the wrong sort--came smoothly down
upon the _Revenge_.
A French warrior! Gow took her in with a long, slow glass.
“Thirty-two guns,” he growled to his boatswain, “and by the looks of
her decks the whole French navy’s aboard!”
Down fluttered the black flag; a young panic brewed in those honest
hearts, while in the prisoners’ quarters the Frenchmen could scarcely
breathe for hope and fear.
Gow knocked his pipe pensively out on the capstan. His was the right
of decision to stay and fight or flee to fight another day. He ordered
flight.
“You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, rather grogged up, “Run
away from a frog-eater!”
[Illustration: “You white-livered coward!” bellowed Williams, “Run away
from a frog-eater!”]
That meant only one thing--who would fire first? Out of his belt
Williams whipped his pistol and snapped it squarely at his captain.
The thing flared and fizzed and flashed feebly in the pan. Guns were
tragically unreliable in those days. Ere he could recover for another
shot, he went down with two balls piercing his body,--and one of them
was from the weapon of old Paterson.
Gow simply commanded with a slight, contemptuous inclination of the
head; old Paterson and another grabbed the lieutenant for rough and
ready interment in the convenient deep, but when they had pantingly
hoisted the body to the height of the bulwark, it came back to vigorous
life, hit about with startling force and then bolted, pistol drawn and
still loaded, to the powder magazine, shouting that all hands should go
down--or rather up--together. Within but a second of the most dreadful
destruction, a couple of stalwarts fell heavily on the desperate
wretch and lugged him away to be chained in irons and cast among the
prisoners, there to be nursed, lovingly and tenderly, by those who,
like all previous captives, had endured his vile whims; nursed, that
is, by being used as a bench for tired Frenchmen to sit upon, and
as a football for those whose cramped limbs made wholesome exercise
imperative.
Somehow the rogue lived,--lived until another ship was captured, or,
more probably, simply detained, for, after appropriating a few portable
valuables, Gow, with the consent of the crew of the _Revenge_, put
Lieutenant Williams aboard the stranger with sharp admonition to the
surprised skipper to keep him in close ward until the first English
man-of-war was met, to which he was to be delivered as a wicked pirate
for yard-arm bunting.
Simply speechless with astonished rage, Mr. Williams was slung aboard.
But he was only one of many who had to learn that, above all things,
pirates loved their little jokes, especially some delicate impertinence
like this to constituted authority.