The Privateersman

“Yes,” replied Toplift, “we are.”

“Yes, I thought so, captain, but I expected to meet another schooner which is very like to yours, and is also in the trade. I made my signal to her, as, when she has anything to get rid of, why I take it off her hands. Perhaps you may have something of the kind which is not exactly safe to show,—church-plate and the like. I pay ready money—that’s my plan.”

As it afterwards appeared, Madam, this scoundrel had been in the free trade, or pirating, himself for many years, but he had taken an opportunity of walking off with a large sum of money belonging to the pirate crew, and with this money he had purchased his property in Virginia and the brig which he now commanded. Although he did not follow up the free trade any more, he had made arrangements with a pirate captain whom he met at Port Royal to meet them at the back of the island and receive such articles as the pirate might want to turn into cash, by which he, of course, took care to secure large profits.

This he had done several times, and as he sold his cargo at Port Royal for dollars, he had always cash to pay for what the pirate wished to get rid of. But he had now run into the lion’s jaws, for not only were I and the Portuguese on board to denounce him as a robber, but, what was still more unfortunate for him, three of the pirate’s crew, whom had he swindled out of their property, were also on board of us, and recognised him immediately.

As Captain Toplift knew how I had been treated by him, he thought it was time he should be confronted with me, and to his question as to whether there was anything to dispose of, he replied to him, “You must put that question to the captain. There he is.”

The fellow turned to me; he looked at me, stared, and was mute, when his cub of a boy cried out, “As sure as a gun it’s he, father, and no mistake.”

“Oh, you imp of Satan, you know me, do you?” replied I. “Yes, it is he. Send all the men aft.”

The men came fast enough. They were only waiting till I had spoken to them to come and give information against him.

“Now, my lads,” said I, “this is a scoundrel who fell in with some of us when we were in distress, after we had lost our vessel. Instead of behaving as one seaman does to another, he robbed us of all we had, and turned us adrift naked to be killed by the Indians. Of all, I and the two Portuguese you took on board about four months back are the only three left: the others perished. The one who was with me was burnt to death by the Indians, and I narrowly escaped. I leave you to decide what this scoundrel merits.”

“But there is more against him, captain,” said the men, and then four of them stepped out and declared that he had run away with the money belonging to the crew of which they were a part, and that the sum he had stolen amounted to 25,000 dollars.

“What have you to say for yourself?” said I to him.

“That I’ve been a cursed fool to be caught as I have been.”

“What will they do, father?”

“Hang us, I suppose,” replied he.

“Captain Toplift,” said I, “I do not command this vessel, and I shall therefore leave you to decide upon the fate of this miscreant;” and, having said that, I was going below to the cabin, when the captain of the Transcendant’s son ran to me, and said, “I want to speak to you, Sir, when you are alone.”

“What are you after, Peleg?” cried his father.

“I’m going to save your life, father, if I can,” replied he.

“You’ll be clever if you do that, boy,” said the man, sneeringly.

I allowed the boy to follow me down into the cabin, and then asked him what he had to say.

“I have that to tell you which is of more value than the lives of a hundred boys like me.”

“Boys like you? Why I thought it was to save your father’s life that you came down, Sir?”

“Pooh!” said he, “let him hang; he was born for a halter. I am come to save my own life. I only said that to gammon him.”

“You’re a hopeful youth,” said I; “and pray what is that you can tell me that will save your own neck from the halter?”

“That which will save your own, most likely,” replied the boy, “and tit-for-tat’s all fair.”

“Well, let’s hear it then,” replied I.

“No, not unless you promise. I can swing, if need be, as well as father, but I’d rather not, ’cause I know where all his money is hidden.”

“I can’t make any promise,” replied I.

“Then I can’t tell,” replied he, “so I may e’en go on deck and tell father that I cannot manage it;” and as he said the latter part of this speech, the undaunted little villain actually laughed at the idea of gammoning his father, as he termed it.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it, is mostly true; but it is more certain that if you train a child up in the way that he should not go, he will be a more true disciple. Could there be a more decided proof of the above than the behaviour of this young villain? But his father had made him so, and thus was he rewarded.

“Stop,” said I, for I had reflected whether, after all, there were any grounds for hanging the boy, and come to a conclusion that a jury would have probably acquitted him. “Stop,” said I; “you say that what you can tell is of the greatest consequence.”

“And becomes of more consequence every minute that passes,” replied he. “I will tell you everything, and let you into father’s secrets. I peach upon father altogether.”

“Well, then,” replied I, “if what you have to disclose proves important, I will do all I can to save your life, and I have no doubt that I shall be able so to do.”

“No more have I,” replied he, “or I would not have come to you. Now then, father came to the back of the island to do a little business with a pirate schooner, as he said just now; and he has very often done it before, as he said just now; but father did not tell you all. When we were in Port Royal, father went to the captain of a king’s vessel who is there, having been sent to put down the pirates if possible, and he offered this captain of the king’s ship, for a certain sum, to put our friends that we exchange with into his hands.”

“What, betray his friend the pirate?”

“Yes, father agreed that he would come round as he has done this day, and would contrive to chaffer and bargain with him and keep him so late in the bay that the king’s ship should come upon him all of a sudden and take him, and this was father’s intention, only you have pinned him. The king’s ship will be round that point in two hours or thereabouts, so if you are found here you will be taken and handed as sure as I ain’t hanged yet. Now ain’t this important news, and worth all I asked for it?”

“It certainly is, if it is true, boy.”

“Oh, I’ll prove it, for I always goes with father, and he trusts me with everything. I saw the paper signed. The king’s ship is called the Vestal, and the captain who signed the paper signed it Philip Musgrave.”

“Indeed,” said I, turning away, for I did not wish the boy to perceive my emotion at this announcement. I recovered myself as soon as I could, and said to him, “Boy, I will keep my promise. Do you stay below, and I will go on deck and plead for your life.”

“Mayn’t I go on deck for a bit?” said he.

“What to wish your father good-bye? No, no, you had better spare yourself and him that painful meeting.”

“No, I don’t want to wish him good-bye,—I’ll wait till it’s over, only I never did see a man hanged, and I have a curiosity to have just a peep.”

“Out, you little monster,” cried I, running up on deck, for the information I had received was too important not to be immediately taken advantage of.

“Well, captain, has the boy saved his father’s life?”

“No,” replied I, in a loud voice.

“Then, up he goes,” said the men, for the halter had been round his neck and run out to the yard-arm for some time, and the men had manned the rope, only awaiting my return on deck. In a second, the captain of the Transcendant was swinging in the air, and certainly if ever a scoundrel merited his fate it was that man. Shortly afterwards I turned round, and there was the young hopeful looking at his father’s body swinging to and fro with the motion of the vessel.

I looked in vain for a tear in his eye; there was not a symptom of emotion. Seeing me look sternly at him, he hastened down below again.

“My lads,” said I to the men, who were all on deck, “I have received intelligence of that importance that I recommend that we should cut that vessel adrift, and make sail without a moment’s loss of time.”

“What, not plunder?” cried the men, looking at the Transcendant.

“No, not think of it, if you are wise.”

At this reply all of the men exclaimed that “that would not do”—“that plunder they would”—that “I was not the captain of the vessel,”—and many more expressions, showing how soon a man may lose popularity on board of a pirate vessel.